DALLAS: Matthew Wade’s swashbuckling 78-run knock powered San Francisco Unicorns to a dominant 21-run victory over the Los Angeles Knight Riders in the eighth match of the Major League Cricket (MLC).
Opting to bat first, San Francisco Unicorns piled up the highest total of 212/7 in the MLC history with opener and wicketkeeper Matthew Wade leading their batting charge with a quickfire half-century.
Unicorns’ opening pair of Wade and Finn Allen scripted a solid start with a brisk 88-run stand.
The stand was majorly dominated by Wade while Allen was rotating the strike before Sunil Narine finally got rid of him in the eighth over to draw a much-needed breakthrough for the Knight Riders.
Allen could score 20 off 19 deliveries, hitting a boundary and two sixes.
Joining Wade at the crease after Allen’s dismissal, Marcus Stoinis added further to the misery of Knight Riders’ bowlers with belligerent hitting.
The Australian pair added 55 runs amid their scintillating partnership before both perished in quick successions as Knight Riders hit back.
Stonis scored a brisk 27 off 18, smashing three boundaries and three sixes while Wade top-scored for the Unicorns. His 41-ball 78 featured seven boundaries and five sixes.
The Unicorns sustained another quick blow to their batting expedition but Corey Anderson’s berserk cameo at the backend lifted them to surpass the 200-run mark.
Anderson scored 39 off 20, laced with three boundaries and as many sixes.
Adam Zampa led the bowling attack for the Knight Riders with 3/41 while Narine, Andre Russell and Ali Khan struck out a batter each.
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Set to chase a daunting 213, the Knight Riders fell 21 runs short as they could accumulate 191/5 in the allotted 20 overs despite Jason Roy and Russell’s quick knocks.
Roy gave Knight Riders a flying start to the run chase by charging on the Unicorns right from the start and soon took them past the 50-run mark in the fifth over.
Pakistan pacer Haris Rauf, who went for back-to-back boundaries off Roy, hit back to remove the hard-hitting batter and released the pressure from Unicorns.
Roy scored a dominant 45 off 21 with the help of four boundaries and as many sixes.
Following his dismissal, the Knight Riders began to lose wickets at regular intervals which halted the flow of runs for the visitors.
They had slipped to 116/5 in the 14th over before skipper Narine and Russell launched a counterattack.
The West Indian pair baton charged Unicorns’ bowlers at the backend and glimmered a ray of hope for the Knight Riders to pull off a miraculous victory but came up just 21 runs short.
Russell scored an unbeaten 42 from 26 balls while Narine remained not out with a 17-ball 28.
Shadab Khan led the bowling attack for the Unicorns with 2/26 while Chaitanya Bishnoi, Haris Rauf and Corey Anderson made one scalp each.
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