Steve Smith’s outstanding performance leads Washington Freedom to the MLC 2024 victory over San Francisco, scoring 88 runs in the final match.
Washington Freedom capped off a dominant season by clinching the MLC 2024 title with another commanding performance in the final at the Grand Prairie Stadium in Dallas.
Washington’s incredible 207/5 in 20 overs was established by Steve Smith’s brilliant 88 from 52 deliveries. Leading the bowling assault were Marco Jansen and Rachin Ravindra, thereby restricting San Francisco to 111 all out in just 16 overs.
Earlier, being put into bat, Smith and Maxwell (40 off 22 balls) shared an 83-run stand for the fourth wicket to take Washington past 150 before late unbeaten cameos from Mukhtar Ahmed (19* off 9 balls) and Obus Pienaar (13* off 9 balls) took them to the highest total of the season.
American wicketkeeper-batter Andries Gous also contributed with the bat, scoring 21 off 14 balls as the San Francisco bowling attack that included Pat Cummins couldn’t stop the run-flow.
For the Unicorns, Cummins was the pick of the bowlers with 2 wickets for 35 runs, but the rest of the bowling unit conceded upwards of 40 runs in their spells to concede the highest total of the MLC 2024.
A score of 200 has never been chased down in the MLC’s short history, and the Unicorns’ hopes were dented early when Jake Fraser-McGurk chopped a Marco Jansen ball onto his stumps. By the end of the PowerPlay, the Unicorns were pushed into a tight corner with Jansen also accounting for the in-form Finn Allen via another chop-on. From the other end, Saurabh Netravalkar dismissed Sanjay Krishnamurthi, the architect of Unicorns’ blazing chase against Freedom a week ago.
By the ninth over, the inscription of the winner’s name on the trophy could have begun as the Unicorns unraveled in their chase to slip to 56 for 6. Andrew Tye struck twice in his second over to dismiss Josh Inglis and Corey Anderson, snuffing out any faint hopes of a Unicorns revival. Jansen returned to take a third wicket, this time with a bouncer before Ravindra placed the cherry on the Freedom cake by scything through the tail with three wickets of his own.
Steven Smith led from the front:
It appears likely that Smith’s T20I career is over following his World Cup omission and absence from the squad to face Scotland and England in September as the selectors look to the future, but it has been a profitable few weeks for him in the US.
Smith played the biggest innings in the final of Major League Cricket. In his innings of 52 balls, Captain Smith hit 7 fours and 6 sixes. Glenn Maxwell supported him well by scoring 40 runs in 22 balls. Maxwell hit 4 sixes. There was a partnership of 83 runs between the two in just 38 balls.
