Pakistan thought it was playing USA, turned out to be Team India H-1B.
This was not Pakistan losing to India B Team, it was Pakistan losing to India H1-B. That was the popular take on Friday at Dallas where USA shocked one-time world champions Pakistan in a nail-biting Super Over finish in a group game of the World T20.
With as many as six cricketers of Indian descent, most of them on temporary H1-B visas that allow companies to hire overseas employees, featuring in the historic USA win, the joke would be a hit in the immigrant community.
Almost everyone had a role in scripting a historic day for American cricket. The ripples of joy spilled as far as Delhi and Mumbai, Anand in Gujarat and Chikkamagaluru in Karnataka. Their stories are diverse.
The Super Over hero, Saurabh Netravalkar, had packed his bags from Mumbai to San Francisco for higher studies.
Player of the Match and batting hero Monank Patel (50 off 38 balls) had left Anand in 2016 for New Jersey to start a restaurant after he realised his cricket career was going nowhere.
Three-wicket hero Nosthush Kenjige, born in Alabama but raised in Nilgiris and Bengaluru, returned to the US to work as a biological technician.
Milind Kumar, who took a blinding catch in the Super Over, had represented a clutch of domestic sides before quitting his job in ONGC and flying to Houston, where he had been playing league cricket.
Nitish Kumar, whose last-ball four tied the game, was born in Ontario, Canada, but shifted to the US during a torrid phase during the pandemic.
Left-arm spinner Harmeet Singh, whose action was likened to Bishan Singh Bedi, left India as a shattered man after setbacks and rejection, including an alleged match-fixing scandal although the board eventually cleared him.
Jasdeep Singh spent most of his life shuttling between New Jersey and Chandigarh, before settling down in the US.
It’s a big day for Team USA and for the USA cricket community, too. Of course, beating Pakistan in the World Cup is going to open many doors for Cricketers.
