Aaron Jones axed from USA ODI side after opting for club over country 

Aaron Jones may have paid the price for preferring club over country. The former USA vice-captain has been dropped for the World Cup League-2  tri-series commencing on Friday. The selection committee has named an unchanged squad that last toured Namibia for WCL-2 in September. Jones opted to miss the Namibia tour with the USA, preferring to honour his Caribbean T20 League contract with St. Lucia Kings. It is learnt that it may have sat wrong with the selection panel and thus the axe. Despite USA Cricket not providing NOC for the right-handed batter, Jones ultimately played for the franchise as a local player in the competition. 

Compared to Andries Gous, who curtailed his engagement with Trinbago Knight Riders to make himself available for the Namibia tour retains his place in the squad. The fact that the associate nation stayed unbeaten in their four ODI games in Namibia in Jones’ absence might have prompted the selectors to make the bold call to axe Jones. He was called back for the T20I series in the wake of his heroics in the Caribbean T20 League final but is very likely that Jones may lose his place in the T20I team following a string of low scores in the Nepal T20I series last week. Jones has been a regular member of USA’s white ball squads since his debut in 2019. 

It was also a day of rapture and anguish for 21-year-old Sanjay Krishnamurthy. The youth sensation, who has been a hot property with his stellar performances in the Major and Minor League ran riot with a fascinating 167* representing USA-A against the touring Scotland. In an exhibition of prime fitness and temperament, Krishnamurthy endured the Dallas heat to scale the telling ask of 341 against a potent attack to stake his comeback into the national side. 

Quite astonishingly, the board announced the team around the time USA-A took off on their chase. While it may have been more reasonable to name a team after the end of the game for which the selections game took place in the first place, it would augur well for the youngster to be added as the 16th man on the squad. USA will play their opening game of the tri-series on Friday against Nepal. 

USA Squad: Monank Patel (captain), Smit Patel, Sai Teja Mukkamalla, Milind Kumar, Shayan Jahangir, Andries Gous, Harmeet Singh, Nosthush Kenjige, Saurabh Netravalkar, Juanoy Drysdale, Utkarsh Srivastava, Jasdeep Singh, Shadley Van Schalkwyk, Yasir Mohammad, Sushant Modani