Hetmyer leads Orcas to first win of season over MINY as his unbeaten 97* trumps Nicholas Pooran’s 108 earlier.
Hetmyer tops Pooran with dramatic last-ball six as Orcas get first win.
It came down to the Seattle Orcas needing nine from the final six balls to defeat MI New York in a game that saw 475 runs scored. Additionally, Kieron Pollard bowled three dots, nearly preventing them from getting them. Shimron Hetmyer, however, got on one knee to a full delivery on off stump and walloped it over square leg when a six was needed off the final ball. Suddenly, Tajinder Singh’s 35-ball 95 and Nicholas Pooran’s 60-ball 108 were in vain.
Under new skipper Sikandar Raza and without a head coach in place, it was the Orcas’ first victory of the season. Additionally, it was the most successful chase in MLC’s two and a half-season history.
Chasing 238 is difficult even in the best of circumstances, and Orcas lost all five of their previous games going into the match. In response, they fired head coach Matthew Mott and replaced Heinrich Klaasen, who had resigned, as captain with Raza.
When Trent Boult takes the new ball, wickets typically fall early. Boult dismissed Josh Brown in his opening over, the second of the innings. Boult also eliminated Shayan Jahangir in his subsequent work. However, Kyle Mayers and Jahangir had ensured that the runs were coming as well. Actually, quite a bit.
Raza walked out, faced just nine balls, hit six of them for fours and one for six, and was ejected for 30. If MINY had scored 62 for 2 in their powerplay, Orcas would have reached 86 for 3. The new skipper provided the impetus.
Nor was the old captain bad. Orcas reached 100 by the ninth over and were 137 for 4 at the midway point, while Klaasen scored 26 from 13. With little over 100 to reach, it shouldn’t have been difficult from there, but wickets fell and it came down to Hetmyer, who seemed to have injured his groin shortly after leaving.
But that didn’t deter him. Hetmyer took Delano Potgieter for 18 runs in the 16th over, demonstrating that Orcas were constantly in tune with the asking rate.
Boult and Rushil Ugarkar, who gave up just three and seven runs in the next two overs, respectively, helped MINY respond. The equation had changed from 12 to 32.
Hetmyer reduced the game to nine needed off six after hitting three sixes off Ehsan Adil. However, Jasdeep Singh failed to make contact with Pollard’s first two slower deliveries, and it was all or nothing following a few singles and a double off the fifth delivery. Additionally, orcas managed to avoid coming up with nothing this season for the first time.