Washington Freedom 113 for 4 (Gous 46*, Luus 2-39) beat MI New York 112 for 8 (Kunwarjeet 33, Maxwell 3-29, Phillips 2-3) by six wickets
With a spot in the MLC 2025 playoffs assured - though as the fourth-placed team, well behind the top three - MI New York gave a bunch of their bench-warmers a go, and found little to take with them into the business end of the tournament.
Opposite them, Washington Freedom played like the dominant team they have been all tournament, putting in a clinical performance to run out victors, and get to the top of the table, where they stayed after Los Angeles Knight Riders beat San Francisco Unicorns in the late match of the day.
In low-scoring Lauderhill, MINY won the toss and opted to bat after a spell of rain, which shortened the game to 18 overs per side, and were 20 for 2 quickly as Glenn Maxwell and Jack Edwards struck. The powerplay (five overs) score of 33 for 2 wasn't great, and it kept getting worse, with Kunwarjeet Singh, on MLC debut, holding one end up but the scoreboard moving a bit too slowly.
Kunwarjeet fell first ball of the 11th over for 33 off 30 balls, with MINY now 66 for 5, and they couldn't even double their score from there, finishing on 112 for 8, with the lower-order batters failing to score at a healthy strike rate. Maxwell added two more wickets to his tally to make it back-to-back three-fors, which later earned him back-to-back Player-of-the-Match awards as well as Freedom went past the target in 15 overs.
The chase was as clinical as the bowling was. Mitchell Owen, who has now scored 25 runs in four innings after a blazing start to the tournament, and Rachin Ravindra, who has also failed to have much of an impact on the tournament, fell early, but Andries Gous and Mark Chapman took a firm grip on the game with their third-wicket partnership.
Gous, who had moved quickly from the time he got in, top-scored with 46 not out in 34 balls, and took Freedom home in the company of Glenn Phillips, with Chapman falling in the 11th over for 27 off 18 balls.
MINY are in the Eliminator now, and with just three wins from ten games, will have their task cut out against Unicorns, while Freedom take on Texas Super Kings in Qualifier 1.
