Backsides were so tight on the USA sideline that they might as well have been whistling "Heigh-Ho," but Sanjay Krishnamurthi wasn't part of the chorus.
The 23 year old allrounder dove home on for a second run on the final ball and was inches over the line when Ali Nadeem dislodged the bails on his wicket to clinch a five-wicket win for the United States over Canada by the barest of margins at Maple Leaf Cricket Club on Friday. His euphoric celebration matched the moment: it was the win that clinched the USA a spot in the Cricket World Cup Qualifier, and it was a win the USA’s bats seemingly did everything they could to avoid.
Milind Kumar will go down in the record books with his fourth ODI century, but a demonstrable lack of urgency in his shot selectin in the final 15 overs nearly sank the Americans chasing a reasonable 276 target on a better batting surface than the one the last two matches were played on. Saiteja Mukkamalla faltered early for just 19 from 37 without recording a boundary, and Shehan Jayasuryia never got the chance to accelerate, lasting just 12 deliveries.
Shubham Ranjane offered 59 from 64 in support of Milind and was looking to kick on with the power he became reputed for in T20s, but he bowed out on a 50/50 LBW call against Kaleem Sana. The urgency came from Krishnamurthi, especially in the final over when the USA needed 15 runs. He was the one who called for a third run on a ball Milind Kumar hit back to deep third that was stopped on the rope by some excellent last-ditch fielding; he was the one that heaved the ball away to the sight screen on the penultimate delivery to keep the visitors' chances alive and reduce the target to two from the final ball. It was only fitting that he scored the decisive run that prevented a super over and delivered a sixth straight win over Canada for the first-place Americans.
That's not to discredit Canada's bowlers. After an early burst from Monank Patel put them under the gun, Saad Bin Zafar's group managed the game extremely well. Zafar made the gutsy call to bowl out Zahid Shirzad just before the death, and it almost worked: the strategy to pin the USA down and spike the run rate with an effective pacer put the USA in a tough position at the end. Sana did great work getting in on the stumps to handcuff batsmen in his final three-over spell. He had ample runs to defend in the final over but couldn't quite pull it off once the innings timer elapsed and Canada were left a man short in the outfield.
Krishnamurthi getting a hero moment - a second to go with his unbeaten 68 against Namibia in the T20 World Cup - is great for his young career. Someone with a lot of personality who plays the game with his heart on his sleeve, he's a visible part of the young vanguard of US-born players who are coming up through the ranks. Krishnamurthi along with Saiteja Mukkamalla and Rushil Ugarkar make for a formidable trio of young players with immense potential and a good 12-15 years of international cricket ahead. They're the group that needs to be prepared to lead after the 2027 World Cup, because they will be the backbone of the Olympic team in 2028, and, at the latest, the 2028 T20 World Cup may be the end of the road for a lot of players in the current setup, especially Jayasuriya, Netravalkar, and Nosh Kenjige. This sort of moment establishes Krishnamurthi as a player with that nebulous quality of "clutch" which is so vital in a middle order role like the one he will likely occupy for much of his white ball career.
The USA will go straight to the Cricket World Cup's global qualifier for the first time in three cycles of this qualification format, currently sitting in first with 42 points putting them beyond the reach of Canada's maximum 41 and Nepal's maximum 40. It's a massive moment for American cricket, which still has a series at home in October against Namibia and the United Arab Emirates. The immediate focus will be on the Netherlands, a team the USA has not beaten yet in ODIs after frittering away a chance on an unsatisfactory pitch on Monday.
If the USA win that game, they'll be on 44 points with a target number of 49 to win Cricket World Cup League 2 outright. A second Canadian win over the Dutch on Tuesday would further reduce the magic number to 47, meaning the USA would need a win and a no result in four games at home in October. While there's not necessarily a material benefit as far as their future in the qualifier to finishing atop the table, it would be a spectacular way to cap off a long, demanding campaign that has seen the rise and fall of multiple careers for the USA over the course of the last two years.
Perhaps just as importantly, Friday's win secures the USA's ODI status through 2031. The landscape of international cricket is changing, so it's unclear just how valuable that status will be in the years to come in a practical sense, but it's likely to be crucial to the USA's push for Full Member status with the ICC under the next board, which feels likely to be reinvigorated by fresh leadership. The national team programs have taken steps forward in spite of that mismanagement, but there's still a lot of room for all four programs to grow (men, women, men U19, women U19).
In the short-term, the USA still has a lot to clean up. Saurabh Netravalkar is either taking wickets and yielding runs or taking no wickets and yielding no runs. The middle order has been struggling to accelerate even when they later kick on for a good score; Mukkamalla needed 36 deliveries to hit his first boundary against Canada the first time around on his way to 81*, and Milind nearly added the saddest century in the modern history of US cricket to those acceleration woes. The USA need to better balance initiative and survival with the bat rather than swinging too far one way or the other. If that balance is found on their day off Saturday, they might just make another piece of history on Sunday.