An all-round show from Imad Wasim helped guide the Seattle Orcas to a five-wicket win over the Washington Freedom in a Major League Cricket (MLC) match on Saturday (July 15).
Imad took 1-19 in the first innings and then scored an unbeaten 43 off 38 balls in the second as the Orcas got home with 2 balls to spare.
However, this was a match in which the bowlers by and large dominated. That might seem unusual given the batter friendly conditions of T20 cricket, but that was indeed the case in this match.
Batting first, the Freedom never really got going. They lost opener Matthew Short early courtesy Imad, and then Mukhtar Ahmed and Glenn Phillips departed before the end of the powerplay too leaving them at 45-3 in 4.5. overs.
The loss of these many wickets meant that the Freedom side looked to consolidate after the powerplay rather than go for the big shots.
It was an approach that worked but, by the beginning of the 13th over they were 89-5, and looked like a collapse was incoming.
They did indeed lose a couple more wickets as skipper Moises Henriques, Obus Piennar and Marcus Jansen also departed without making significant knocks.
The reason Freedom managed a competitive score was due to Akeal Hossain’s score of 33 from 22 balls, as they ended the first innings on 144-7.
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In response, Orcas got off to a good start but were rocked when Anrich Nortje dismissed Quinton de Kock with an absolute ripper.
Shehan Jayasurya (6) and Heinrich Klaasen (1) were also sent back to the dugout without really troubling the scorers and it looked like we might have a thriller on our hands.
However, a 53-run stand between Imad and Nauman Anwar helped steady the ship to an extent before the latter was dismissed two shy of his half-century.
But by that point the Orcas were well within the range of the score. They were helped considerably by the fact that Shimron Hetmyer came on and scored 23 before he was dismissed in the 20th over.
At that time they needed only 5 runs to get the victory and they got those runs courtesy of back-to-back boundaries from Shubham Ranjane to register a hard-fought win in the match.
The Orcas will next take on the San Francisco Unicorns whereas the Freedom will face off against the CSK-owned Texas Super Kings franchise.
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