Canada’s Yuvraj Samra became the first player from an associate nation to make a T20 World Cup century but it was not enough to stop them sliding to an eight-wicket defeat byt New Zealand, who confirmed their place in the Super 8 phase.<\/p>\n
Samra made 110 off 65 balls in a knock which featured 11 fours and six sixes as his stunning innings helped Canada post 173-4.<\/p>\n
The teenager, born in Brampton, Ontario, had brought up his hundred off 58 balls as he eclipsed the previous top score by an associate player – 94 not out by the USA’s Aaron Jones against Canada at the last World Cup. <\/p>\n
At 19 years and 141 days, he also became the youngest-ever T20 World Cup centurion, beating Pakistan Ahmed Shehzad’s (22 years and 127 days) against Bangladesh in 2014. <\/p>\n
Samra was eventually dismissed by Jacob Duffy – caught in the deep behind square by Glenn Phillips – and left to a standing ovation at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai <\/p>\n
“I manifested this moment ever since we qualified for the World Cup. Every single day, I dreamed about scoring a hundred on this stage,” said Samra, who is named after ex-India batter Yuvraj Singh. <\/p>\n
“To do it here, in my first appearance [in Chennai], and as the youngest player in this World Cup \u2013 it’s truly a dream come true.”<\/p>\n
Canada captain Dilpreet Bajwa, who shared a 116-run stand with Samra for the first wicket, added: “Hats off to Yuvraj, he finished with a hundred in this match and it’s a proud moment for him and all Canadians.”<\/p>\n
Kiwi seamers Matt Henry, Kyle Jamieson, Jimmy Neesham and Duffy all claimed one wicket apiece.<\/p>\n
New Zealand had a brief wobble early in the chase when they lost openers Tim Seifert and Finn Allen in quick succession and slipped to 30-2.<\/p>\n
However, Canada’s bowlers were unable to press home the advantage and an unbroken 146-run stand for the third wicket between Rachin Ravindra and Phillips got them home with 29 balls to spare.<\/p>\n
Phillips top-scored with a brutal 76 not out of 36 balls while Ravindra finished unbeaten with 59 off 39 deliveries.<\/p>\n
New Zealand’s victory sent them through and eliminated Canada in addition to the UAE and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canada’s Yuvraj Samra became the first player from an associate nation to make a T20 World Cup century…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-288238","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}