Allen credits CPL experience for performance in USA win

USA allrounder Timroy Allen has said the experience gained while playing for the 2016 Caribbean Premier League champions Jamaica Tallawahs was a key factor in his match-winning half-century that helped USA to a one-wicket win over Italy at the WCL Division Four in Los Angeles. Allen credited the Tallawahs coaching staff, led by Paul Nixon, for fine-tuning parts of his game and building confidence levels after having spent nearly three years away from the USA national team leading into Division Four.

"The batting stance I'm using right now is from the CPL coaches," Allen told ESPNcricinfo after making 53 off 27 balls in Sunday's victory. "A lot of that stuff comes from there. Hitting the ball, striking the ball, being able to stay confident in yourself and back your ability to clear the boundary at any given time. I tell myself that at any given time I could get 10 runs out of one over and consistently and repeatedly I keep telling myself that. So I don't put any pressure, just get the ones and the twos."

Allen had previously made 51 not out off 26 balls against Italy three years ago in a 74-run win at 2013 WCL Division Three in Bermuda. On Sunday, he arrived at the end of the 26th over with USA at 107 for 5 in the chase of 186 in 41 overs. Allen struck two fours and two sixes early in his innings to reduce their target to 17 off seven overs.

"The wickets are great to bat on," Allen said. "The guys at this level, they're not going to be that consistent where they're gonna bowl six good balls so you just have to be patient and wait for the bad ball and that's all I did today.

"We were in a crucial position but at some point one of the senior guys are going to have to step up. A win is a win, I'm just a little disappointed I wasn't able to finish the game so I'll just have to go back and make sure the next time I'm in the situation again, I put my head down and finish it for us."

Allen said he feels the USA batting lineup is capable of posting huge totals with the small boundaries being used at Woodley Park, with Wright Cricket Field the smallest featuring 55-yard boundaries straight down the ground.

"We're capable of making 400 runs in this tournament so if we're chasing 180-200 runs, we shouldn't have any problem with it," Allen said. "The situation we were put in today, the wicket was really good. It's just the top order needs to come and help us out a little bit. Yesterday, [against Bermuda] they came big for us so we're not going to put them under too much pressure. The guys have a lot of talent. They know exactly what we need to do. We need to come here and win but for us to win we need to come here and make runs. That's it."

Despite their victories, USA's fielding has been poor. The tournament hosts had six missed chances against Italy a day after dropping two chances against Bermuda. USA has also conceded a tournament high 45 wides, including another 16 against Italy. No other team has bowled more than 18 wides in their first two games.

"I think we're going to have to go back to the drawing table with our fielding in our whole approach," Allen said. "We're not playing cricket all year round so we're going to make mistakes. It's just for us to admit our mistakes and go back to the drawing table and capitalize, just make sure we don't make the same mistake twice."