MI New York vs Seattle Orcas
As is now customary, Boult picked a first-over wicket when he had Nauman Anwar nicking off to a delivery angling across him. The left-armer struck again in his next over to dismiss the dangerous Quinton de Kock, whose attempted whip to a full delivery ballooned up off a leading edge and nestled in the gloves of the ‘keeper, Pooran. Rashid, introduced into the attack in the last over of the PowerPlay, got himself going with a full delivery that Aaron Jones missed with his attempted sweep and was adjudged LBW.
A bigger wicket followed for Rashid, who won an important duel against Heinrich Klaasen, the South Africa miscuing a pull straight to deep mid-wicket. The Orcas kept stumbling through the knock with only Shubham Ranjane adding any notion of respectability to the scorecard with a 31-ball 35. He became the third of Rashid’s wickets. Boult matched that with a third wicket of his own while captain Kieron Pollard grabbed two wickets as the Orcas folded with four balls still left in their innings.
MINY’s chase got off to a wobbly start as openers Ruben Clinton and Monank Patel fell cheaply to Cameron Gannon. Pooran though went about the chase in counter-attacking fashion, stitching a 41-run stand in which his partner for the third wicket, Shayan Jahangir, managed only 3 off 8. The Caribbean T20 star smashed seven fours and two sixes and saw his team over the line with 34 balls to spare.
Brief scores:Seattle Orcas 108 in 19.2 overs (Shubham Ranjane 35; Rashid Khan 3-22, Trent Boult 3-25) lost to MI New York 111/4 in 14.2 overs (Nicholas Pooran 62*; Cameron Gannon 2-40) by six wickets.
Texas Super Kings vs LA Knight Riders
Unmukt Chand and Ali Khan played starring roles for LA Knight Riders, who got their season underway with a 12-run win over Texas Super Kings at the Grand Prairie Stadium in Dallas. Put into bat, Chand held LA’s innings together with an excellent 45-ball 68 to give the bowlers 162 to defend. TSK appeared to be well on course to getting that total when Devon Conway’s half-century had them at 102/2 in the 14th over before Ali Khan (4-33) sent them into a tailspin with his three-wicket over.
The start to this fixture was delayed by half-an-hour because of rains but once the ground was cleared for play, Faf du Plessis invited LA to take first strike. His decision was vindicated by Zia-ul-Haq, who struck twice in his second over to dismiss openers Jason Roy and Sunil Narine. Shakib Al Hasan joined Chand for a breezy stand of 39 to which the Bangladesh veteran contributed 18 (13). Nitish Kumar struck two sixes in a 17-ball knock of 26 but post his dismissal, LAKR were pegged back by the double loss of David Miller and Andre Russell, the latter out hit-wicket after batting too deep in his crease. From a precarious 106/6, Chand guided the score past 150. In all, he hit six fours and three sixes. Corne Dry, batting at No.9, hit three of the four balls he faced for boundaries to add 12 crucial runs, which turned out to be the margin of victory.
Ultimately, TSK were left to rue the 14th and 15th overs of their chase when they lost four wickets in a span of 12 balls, including three in the 14th bowled by Ali Khan. Until then, Conway’s 39-ball 53 had put them firmly in control of the chase. With his second ball, Ali cleaned up Conway, who attempted to dab a length ball towards thirdman and missed. Joshua Tromp then fell to a stunning, diving catch at third man from Derone Davis. Russell produced a great catch at first slip to dismiss Milind Kumar. Sunil Narine then produced the perfect follow-up over and trapped Marcus Stoinis LBW. The plug on the chase was pulled out and TSK fell short despite a late cameo from Calvin Savage (29* off 18)
Brief scores: LA Knight Riders 162/7 in 20 overs (Unmukt Chand 68, Nitish Kumar 26; Zia-ul-Haq 2-16) beat Texas Super Kings 150/8 in 20 overs (Devon Conway 53; Ali Khan 4-33) by 12 runs.
