Canada clinches 1st-ever berth to T20 cricket World Cup with win over Bermuda
CBC
Canada's men's cricket team is headed to the ICC Men's T20 World Cup for the first time ever after defeating Bermuda by 39 runs Saturday in Hamilton, Bermuda.
Canada won the toss and elected to bat first at the National Sports Centre. Each team was restricted to 18 overs, down from 20, due to the delayed start and weather conditions.
The Canadian batsmen finished strongly with Nicholas Kirton sparking a 20-run final over for a total of 132 runs for four wickets. Opener Navneet Dhaliwal led Canada with 45 runs.
Bermuda's batsmen had no answer for Kaleem Sana's accuracy and Jeremy Gordon's pace, all out for 93 in the 17th over. Both bowlers took three wickets with Bermuda's lower order crumbling from 85 for five to 93 all out.
The Canadians failed to qualify for the eight previous editions of the T20 World Cup, which has expanded to 20 teams in 2024 when it will be co-hosted by the West Indies and United States.
Canada, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Panama were competing in the ICC Men's T20 World Cup Americas Region Final, a double round-robin format, for a berth in the 2024 T20 World Cup.
Canada and Bermuda both finished with 4-1-0 records with one no-result. But Canada, which lost to Bermuda by 86 runs in its opening match, won the tournament by a superior net run rate (3.98 to 2.41).
"A lot of cricketing gurus here wrote us off after the first day but I believe God could not have written a more dramatic script for us," said Canada captain Saad Bin Zafar, before hoisting the tournament trophy surrounded by his teammates.
"He tested our patience and self-belief but we kept a positive mindset throughout the tournament ... Every day was a fight after that for every run, because we were chasing that run rate
"It's our dream to play in a World Cup," he added.
Sana was named player of the match after taking his three wickets at the expense of just four runs. He was also named bowler of the tournament after taking 15 wickets in total.
"I can't describe my feelings right now," Sana said after receiving his reward.
Bermuda's Kamau Leverock was named both the tournament's top batsman, with 233 runs, and MVP
The Cayman Islands (1-3-0 with two no results) finished third and Panama (0-4-0 with two no results) fourth after their early match Saturday was called off.
Canada's Kevin Drury battled his way to a gold medal that left him in tears at a World Cup ski cross event on Friday in Val Thorens, France.
Soccer fans have accused FIFA of a "monumental betrayal" after latest prices for World Cup tickets began to circulate on Thursday.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is “disappointed” that the main arena slated to host ice hockey at February’s Olympics isn’t yet completed with less than two months to go before the Games are scheduled to be played.
A two-year suspension from competitive swimming has forced Penny Oleksiak to answer questions about drug use, train by herself in public pools and defend her legacy as Canada’s most decorated female Olympian.
Hockey, one of the premier events at the Winter Olympics and one that is welcoming NHL players back for the first time in more than a decade, will take place on ice shorter than NHL-regulation size.
Summer McIntosh capped swimming’s U.S. Open with the event record in the women’s 200-metre butterfly on Saturday in Austin, Texas.
Some bronze medals are worth their weight in gold. Valerie Grenier's third-place finish in women's giant slalom at the Mont-Tremblant World Cup certainly fits that category.
The men’s World Cup draw in Washington D.C. was going well for Canada until Pot 4.
The draw for the 2026 World Cup takes place Friday at 12 p.m. ET at the Kennedy Center in Washington, for the purpose of dividing the 48-team field into 12 groups of four. Once the tournament starts, 32 teams will advance from those preliminary groups to the single-elimination knockout rounds.
The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., buzzed with activity and speculation on Thursday in advance of Friday’s all-important draw for the 2026 men’s World Cup.
By the time the management group for the Canadian men’s national hockey team emerges from marathon meetings on Tuesday, as much as 80 per cent of the roster going to Italy next February should be written in pen.
Canada’s ski mountaineering athletes have their Olympic dreams on the line this weekend at a World Cup event in Solitude, Utah.
Goalie Carter Hart, one of five 2018 Canada world junior hockey players acquitted of sexual assault in July, will make his first NHL appearance in nearly two years when he starts in goal Tuesday night for the Vegas Golden Knights, who host Chicago.