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Scorer: Binoy George | Commentator: Rvel Zahid
Until next time, take care and keep enjoying this beautiful sport. This is Rvel Zahid, signing off on behalf of Binoy George.
MI's batting was audacious and power-packed, the bowling was spot on and they executed their plans superbly. Nicholas Pooran was at his belligerent best and in no-mercy mood today. He launched an assault on Freedom bowlers and was striking the ball effortlessly in his 62-run blitzkrieg. USA's captain Monank Patel was smashing the ball all around the park with ease in his enterprising 44-run knock and didn't allow them a sniff in the powerplay while Pollard played second fiddle to Pooran with a handy contribution of 21 off 10. As a result of this thumping win, MI New York have now climbed to the third spot with a healthy net run rate of 1.319 and seem to be peaking at the right time. The big guns came to the party today and at no stage Washington Freedom bowlers threatened to cause problems to the dynamic batting line-up.
Nicholas Pooran, Player of the Match: I am really happy that I could contribute today. It was two-paced (surface). They were bowling wicket to wicket. Once we got a good powerplay it made things easier. The platform was set and I knew my role...took on the match-ups for me.
Moises Henriques: Back-to-back games are always difficult. We are professionals and gave our best. We scrapped our way to 160, 30 runs more than yesterday. Wicket was still keeping quite low. It was tough to come back after the powerplay. Akeal and obviously our wicketkeeper, and we lost Glenn out there in the field. I feel these little things didn't quite go our way. we are still in the finals and have got a few days off, that should be good for us. We will look at match ups for the (playoffs).
Kieron Pollard: One thing I press upon is that we can do nothing about the surface but we can focus on our attitude. I think sometimes we speak too much about pitch and we can get into negative frame of mind. We haven't played much here, we took a chance and sometimes a decision backfires but today it worked. I felt we gave 15 extra runs. Kudos to the guys. We had a good conversation on how we want to play, especially against the left-arm seamer. They came out with intent which was fantastic. The running between wickets was important and they totally got it right, Pooran finishing it off was fantastic.
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