INTO THE ELIMINATOR!! Klaasen ton pips Boult death-overs masterclass
By MI New York Media
Bitter-sweet. Not the dreamy way we’d imagined of us storming into the play-offs, with us ending up on the wrong side of this cliffhanger of a game. But a Q nevertheless. And what a fight it was! From a point where the game looked dead and buried, to clawing up, sending a serious scare.
W W wd 0 W 2 0 -- Bowled, Boult!
Here’s how it stood: Seattle Orcas needed 27 runs off 24 balls with six wickets in hand. Morrisville’s chasing-ground reputation was once again coming right to the fore. With Heinrich Klaasen in the mood and batting on 90 off 36 balls, it only looked like a formality. Not to our man. Mind you, with Trent Boult, you expect miracles. Oh and his 18th over was something.
Dwaine Pretorius fell off the first ball to an outside edge to the keeper. Imad Wasim was cleaned up with an absolute beauty, a slower dipping yorker that snuck under his bat. And poor Harmeet Singh just couldn’t figure out the deception as he went through with his shot early, only for his off-stump to be pegged back. Three runs, two wickets, and the game was well and truly back in the balance.
Klaasen’s Klass
Seattle’s innings was a one man show. In a stiff chase of 195, he took no time to settle in. With Nauman Anwar the only other contributor really as seven of the other Orcas batters got single-digit scores, Klaasen kept the scoring-rate well under check. The 16th over against Rashid Khan turned the tide firmly, with HK smashing him for 26 runs, including three sixes and a four. Even when things got tricky towards the end, he was able to keep finding boundaries at regular intervals, becoming MLC’s first centurion in the process!
Another Pooran-Polly show
As if celebrating his move to number three, Nicky P, just continued from where he left off the other night against Washington. 68 runs | 34 balls | 3 fours | 7 sixes. Everything sweeter than the previous hit. And with skipper Polly tonking coming in at number five and ensuring the momentum doesn’t drop with an 18-ball 34, the platform was laid for MI New York to finish big.
Right then, here’s how it stands: the MLC caravan heads back to Dallas, where MI New York will face the Washington Freedom in the first Eliminator on Thursday (July 27) in an afternoon game. It’s going to be red hot, literally!
