United States have destroyed Canada's bowling after a slow start to overpower their neighbours by seven wickets in the opening match of the Twenty20 World Cup at Dallas.
Aaron Jones muscled 10 sixes in an unbeaten 94 from 40 balls to propel his team to 197/3 from 17.4 overs in reply to Canada's 194/5.
Opener Navneet Dhaliwal topscored with 61 for the Canadians, before he was caught off former Blackcaps all-rounder Corey Anderson bowling his first delivery for his new team.
Anderson, 33, returned with the bat, but with Jones on the charge, he simply held up his end with three runs off five balls.
Among 95 appearances for New Zealand, he set a record for the fastest one-day international century off 36 balls against West Indies, before marrying American Mary Shamburger and moving to Dallas, Texas.
The ninth edition of the sport's shortest format opened with a match-up between two countries who, in 1844, played the first international in the summer game of the British Empire. Canada won a lowscoring three-day game at New York by 23 runs.
Cricket had been a popular sport in the United States, particularly in Philadelphia, but was supplanted by baseball in the latter stages of the 19th century.
Now with T20 cricket, a format of similar length to baseball games, on the agenda for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, the International Cricket Council hopes to attract a new and potentially lucrative audience by splitting the World Cup between the Caribbean and the United States.
Twice-champion West Indies open their campaign against Papua New Guinea at Georgetown on Monday and defending champions England play Scotland at Barbados on Wednesday.
Australia, the world test and 50-overs champions, will be in action for the first time, when they meet Oman at Barbados next Thursday.
The biggest clash of the first round will come threes days later, when Australia goes up against England.
New Zealand open their account against Afghanistan next Saturday.
Join Newshub at 11:30am Saturday for live updates of the Blackcaps v Afghanistan World Cup clash
