MINYvSFU report: On debut, Heath nearly pulls off a miracle, nearly :(
By MI New York Media
If you ever were to try describing a heartbreak, you needn’t look beyond tonight. A game that swung and switched sides by the ball, and by the 20th over, looked out of our grasp. But a young Heath Richards, on his Major Cricket League debut, wasn’t one to throw in the towel. Read on..
Remember the name
With 41 runs needed off 24 balls, MI New York lost Monank Patel off the first ball of the 17th over to Hasan Khan, and in walked Heath Richards. Dot, dot, dot, dot. Rashid Khan came over to have a word. And the next ball was tonked over the sightscreen. And then in the last over, with 20 runs still needed and the experienced Haris Rauf bowling, Richards put him under the pump right away. He picked out his slower ball, smashed it over long-off, and then with ten needed off the last two balls, pulled one way over cow corner. One ball | Four runs. Alas, it wasn’t to be. Heath’s reverse-lap didn’t connect. The Blue and Gold hearts, broke!
DB arrives in style!
Promoted up the order, young Dewald Brevis, was on fire. While Ruben Clinton fell in the second over, Brevis found good support in Nicholas Pooran, who was happy to play second fiddle. With five fours and three sixes in his 36-ball knock of 56, DB kept MINY’s nose ahead in the chase of 149. But our other batters couldn’t quite get going. Pooran too wasn’t his usual self. Polly, Monank, Romario, all fell in single digits, and the chase went off-track.
The perfect start with the ball
Now the Unicorns may have gotten to 148 at the end, but at 33/5 in seven overs, we really had them on the mat. Nosthush Kenjige, with his mystery spin, got rid of the dangerous Finn Allen in the first over itself, struck once more in his next dismissing Matthew Short, and finished with a spell of 2/13 in his four overs. Boult, from the other end, kept things very tight too. In the end, it was a late recovery from Hasan Khan and Corey Anderson that got SFY out of trouble.
Here's the equation then: Our final game against LA Knight Riders is a knockout. We need to win, and win big enough to go over their net run-rate, and leapfrog into the playoffs. Again, this is no unfamiliar territory. The Knight Riders are a team we have a good record against. One win, and we’ll get the momentum to soar through..
