Ali Khan

NEW DELHI: With India set to take on co-hosts USA in their T20 World Cup match at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York, interesting match-ups are on the cards.Ahead of the match on Wednesday, the host broadcaster shared a video of US cricketers Saurabh Netravalkar, captain Monank Patel, Harmeet Singh, Ali Khan and Corey Anderson talking about taking on India.T20 WORLD CUP: SCHEDULE | POINTS TABLEWelcoming Team India to the USA, Saurabh Netravalkar says, “If we play our best game, we can sort of compete against top cricketers. We will try to take one game at a time and not get overwhelmed by the star-studded players and will try to bowl against a batsman and bat against a bowler. Try to keep it simple.”US captain Monank Patel remarks, “You dream about these kinds of things. Suddenly you see yourself with Rohit Sharma on the toss time. It’s unreal. It will be a high-pressure game, we don’t want to focus too much on them right now. We want to play the brand of cricket we want to play against all the teams.”Harmeet Singh adds, “Growing up I used to look up to Rohit Sharma. Rohit comes from my school. I’ll take things as they come. With Sanju (Samson), Kuldeep (Yadav) I have played U-19 for India. Axar (Patel) I have played with him. It’ll be fun catching up with them and playing against them.”US pacer Ali Khan, who was born in Pakistan, added fuel to the rivalry by saying, “Virat Kohli has always been one of the favourites and coming up against him and playing against him, it will be really really good. He is very passionate on the field but so am I. On the field if things get heated up then they get heated up. I mean you play fire with fire. He’s right up there. They call him King Kohli for a reason.”Corey Anderson, who has played international cricket for New Zealand concludes, “That’s the beauty of playing against India. You know that you’re going to have millions and millions of eyes on you and you know they are against you. There are familiar foes that I have faced and played against. You have done this before and there is evidence to suggest that you can do it again.” With two victories in as many games, the USA squad has been dominating the T20 World Cup. The Indian team, which the US team has never played in any format, is packed with IPL superstars.Among the USA team, five were Indian natives. The team’s India-born players include Ronak Patel, Nisarg Patel, Saurabh Netravalkar, Harmeet Singh, and Milind Kumar. In the one and only IPL match he took part in, Harmeet Singh dismissed Ross Taylor for Rajasthan Royals, that was then led by the present India head coach Rahul Dravid.