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Bermuda crushed by USA

Salman Ahmad gets a high five from captain Abhijut Joshi (10) after bowling Bermuda's Christian Burgess

Bermuda Under-19s were crushed by USA as their World Cup dreams were ended in humiliating fashion.The Island’s youngsters collapsed to 50 all out in just 17.2 overs.Aside from the 17 extras no batsman made double figures, although William White (9) and Kamau Leverock (9) got close.Steven Taylor (21) and Cameron Mirza (17) then knocked off the runs with ease to book USA’s spot at the World Cup qualifiers in Ireland in style.Salman Ahmad, who ripped the heart out of the Bermuda top order, taking three wickets, including that of Christian Burgess with the second ball of the innings, and leg spinner Gurpreet Sandhu were the pick of the bowlers.Sandhu did to the tail end what Ahmad had done at the start. The spinner took five wickets for just seven runs in –3.2 overs, and afterwards said the USA’s determination not to let up once they had an opponent on the back foot was key to their win.“The thing is that when we get early breakthroughs, we tend to not relax and that’s what we’ve been focusing on the whole tournament, is not relaxing,” said Sandhu.“When you’re on top the plan is to really choke the opposition down, make sure that you don’t let them go and that’s what we’ve been focusing on. I think that’s what really won us the game.”Bermuda play Argentina –today in their final game where there will be nothing but pride at steak, and head coach David Moore said that change was –essential to prevent this sort of defeat happening in the future.“If we keep going the way we’re going then we’re not going to get any better, we must make change to get better, and if don’t make change we’re actually going to go backwards,” said Moore.“But, once again, when you’re making a massive culture change like we are, the coaches now, it’s going to take time.”The first step will be to focus on those players that will be around in two years time for the next qualifying tournament.“What’s going to happen when we come back is we’ll focus on an under-17 squad and take it for two years through to the next qualifying event,” said Moore. “That’s the key.”