Washington Freedom 189 for 8 Owen 60, Chapman 45, Edwards 30, Naveen 2-28, Sunny 2-37, Boult 2-38 beat MI New York 188 for 4 De Kock 55, Bracewell 42, Pooran 33, Monank 32, Holland 1-6 by two wickets
An exhibition of exhilarating powerplay hitting was followed by a long stutter, but the good work done by Mitchell Owen up top was enough to carry Washington Freedom through to victory over MI New York in their MLC 2025 game in Dallas on Saturday.
Chasing 189 for their third win, Freedom ended the powerplay on 74 for 2. Owen had hit 48 of those from 21 balls, with four fours and four sixes, young medium-pacer Rushil Ugarkar the worst hit, conceding 22 in the second over of the innings, when Owen hit three sixes.
But Owen fell in the eighth over, Freedom having lost Rachin Ravindra and Andries Gous already by that stage. Worse for Freedom was that Mark Chapman just didn't seem to be able to get a move on, and his 41-run stand with Jack Edwards for the fourth wicket took 5.5 overs. But, importantly for Freedom, Chapman didn't throw his wicket away even as wickets fell in a rush at the other end, Sunny Patel and Naveen-ul-Haq doing most of the damage.