Washington Freedom (WAF) faced Los Angeles Knight Riders (LAKR) in the ninth match of the Major League Cricket (MLC) 2023 at Church Street Park in Morrisville. The match saw LAKR suffer their fourth consecutive loss in the inaugural event as they lost the contest by six wickets.
Asked to bat first, LAKR got off to a slow start and lost opener Jason Roy in the third over. Following the dismissal of Roy, the Los Angeles-based team kept losing wickets at regular intervals until Rilee Rossouw stepped in and scored valuable 41 runs off just 30 balls. However, it was Andre Russell who turned the game on its head with a breathtaking display of power hitting. Russell smashed a scintillating 70 runs off just 37 deliveries, including six fours and as many sixes. The explosive innings by the all-rounder powered LAKR to a competitive total of 175/7 in their allotted 20 overs.
Moises Henriques was the standout bowler for WAF, taking three wickets for 26 runs in his three overs. Meanwhile, Marco Jansen chipped in with two scalps as well.
In response, WAF top-order batters came out firing on all cylinders, with Matthew Short and Andries Gous providing an explosive start to their team and scoring 43 and 40 runs, respectively. Gous was particularly impressive, smashing five boundaries and two sixes in his 15-ball blitz. Despite the rocket start, WAF suffered a few quick setbacks in the middle overs, with Sunil Narine picking the priced wicket of Short off a brilliant delivery.
It all happened on the sixth ball of the 13th over when Narine produced an off-spin delivery to Short, which the latter failed to read completely and tried to defend. The red leather ultimately deceived him to crash into the stumps. The magical delivery from the LAKR captain left the Washington batter clueless as he took a moment to walk back to the pavilion.
Here’s the video:
Only a BEAUTY 😍like this could get Matthew Short out today!
WHAT A BALL by Sunil Narine!👏 pic.twitter.com/VZdnhvCd8i
— Major League Cricket (@MLCricket) July 21, 2023
Coming back to the match, Obus Pienaar‘s valuable cameo of 26 runs towards the end helped WAF reach the target in just 18.1 overs. Although LAKR lost the contest, Russell’s extraordinary performance with the bat earned him the ‘Player of the Match’ award.
