LA Knight Riders clinch their maiden MLC title: Details here
What's the story
The Los Angeles Knight Riders (LAKR) have won their first Major League Cricket (MLC) title after defeating the Washington Freedom by a narrow margin of one run. The final match was held at the Oakland Coliseum, where Jason Holder and Sunil Narine led their team to victory with their impressive bowling skills. This win broke the duopoly in the tournament's history as MI New York and Washington Freedom had previously exchanged trophies in the first three seasons.
Bowling brilliance
Narine's 3-fer restricts Freedom
The Knight Riders were given a target of 164 runs to defend.
Narine took the lead, dismissing each of the top-three batters for single-digit scores.
Captain Holder also contributed by taking his 400th T20 wicket when Nikhil Chaudhary hit a low full-toss straight into Unmukt Chand's hands at cover.
Match dynamics
Holder's brilliance in the field and bowling
Andries Gous (40), Washington Freedom's top batter with over 500 runs this season, tried to revive the chase with Nikhil Chaudhary (25).
However, Holder struck again when he had Chaudhary caught at cover. This was his 400th T20 wicket.
While Narine claimed 3/13 across four overs in the game, Holder finished with 3/31.
Obus Pienaar (53 off 24) then came in aggressively but fell to Shadley van Shalkwyk's yorker that cleaned him up and turned the game around once again for LAKR.
Washington eventually finished at 163/9.
Game shifts
How did the Knight Riders's innings pan out?
The Knight Riders were off to a strong start with Andre Fletcher (47) and Colin Munro (40) adding 54 runs in the Powerplay.
However, a string of dismissals by Freedom's bowlers dented their innings.
Matthew Tromp (39) was their only other batter to score over 12 runs.
Owing to these setbacks, the Knight Riders were folded for 164 runs in 19.4 overs.
While Ben Dwarshuis took three wickets, Mitchell Owen, Nikhil Chaudhary, and Rachin Ravindra made two strikes each.