Major League Cricket: The Seattle Orcas in the Lead; Washington Freedom Move to Second Place
- The Orcas defeated San Francisco Unicorns by 30 runs, while the latter beat the Texas Super Kings by eight wickets.
After winning all their five games so far, the Seattle Orcas are leading Major League Cricket leaderboard. On Friday (July 21), they defeated Texas Super Kings by six wickets. Following them is the Seattle Washington Freedom, who are on second place, after beating San Francisco Unicorns by 30 runs. Meanwhile, the Unicorns remained in fourth place with two wins from four matches. Both the games were held at Church Street Park in Morrisville, North Carolina.
Saurabh Netravalkar picked up six wickets for Washington Freedom, and was “the star bowler of the night with a magnificent spell of 6/9,” MLC said. Although Finn Allen got the San Francisco Unicorns off to a flying start with three boundaries off Marco Jansen’s bowling in the first over, Anrich Nortje sent Allen packing for 13 runs off 9 balls in the third over. Netravalkar made matters worse for the Unicorns when he dismissed Marcus Stoinis and Shadab Khan in the fourth over.
Earlier in the day, San Francisco Unicorns won the toss and put the Washington Freedom into bat. They kept losing wickets at regular intervals, however, Marco Jansen and Dane Piedt struck three boundaries in the last few overs to help their team put up a fighting total.
A day earlier, on July 21, the Seattle Orcas bowled out the Super Kings in the first innings for 127 before chasing down their target within 16 overs. The Seattle Orcas won the toss and elected to bowl first. The Texas Super Kings had a shaky start to the game as Devon Conway (0) lost his wicket with the very first ball of the innings. Faf Du Plessis (13) and Cody Chetty (22) steadied the ship but were unable to build on their solid starts as their wickets fell within the first powerplay. David Miller (8), Milind Kumar (1), and Mitchell Santner (2) also lost their wickets cheaply before the start of the 9th over. As the Texas Super Kings were floundering with the bat they crossed the 50-run mark in the 10th over.
The Seattle Orcas openers Quinton de Kock and Nauman Anwar gave their team a solid start in the second innings. After putting on 67 runs within 11 overs, Nauman Anwar (19) lost his wicket and he was soon followed by de Kock (53) back to the pavilion after a brilliant half-century. In form, Heinrich Klaasen and Dasun Shanaka helped the Orcas cross the 100-run mark in the 15th over as the total was in their sights.
The Super Kings’ bowling attack was struggling to contain Klaasen (42*) who along with Shanaka (10*) guided the Orcas to a stunning victory within 16 overs with ease. Mitchell Santner and Mohammad Mohsin picked up one wicket each for Texas.