Chapman leads Freedom to terse win over MI New York despite MINY stretching the game out with quick wickets.
Owen, Chapman star in Freedom’s tense win over MI New York.
A lengthy stutter followed an impressive display of powerplay hitting, but Mitchell Owen’s strong play up top was sufficient to lead the Washington Freedom to win over MI New York in their MLC 2025 match on Saturday in Dallas.
Freedom finished the power play on 74 for 2, chasing 189 for their third victory. Young medium-pacer Rushil Ugarkar was the worst hit, giving up 22 runs in the second over of the innings when Owen struck three sixes. Owen had blasted 48 of those off 21 balls, including four fours and four sixes.
However, Freedom had already lost Andries Gous and Rachin Ravindra by the time Owen fell in the ninth over. Mark Chapman’s 41-run partnership with Jack Edwards for the fourth wicket took 5.5 overs, and it was even worse for Freedom since he simply couldn’t seem to get going. Crucially for Freedom, though, Chapman kept his wicket despite the fact that Sunny Patel and Naveen-ul-Haq were causing the majority of the damage as wickets fell quickly at the other end.
After the death overs began, Trent Boult picked up one wicket, gave up just one run, and appeared to be getting a wicket with each of the other deliveries in the 18th over. Overs 17 and 18 combined for 3 for 2.
Unfortunately for MINY, they had to use Ugarkar for the 19th after being forced to bowl out all of their best bowlers. This gave Freedom and Chapman the opportunity to complete the task in the last over, which was bowled by Kieron Pollard.
MINY scored 70 and 78 runs in their innings, while Freedom scored 74 and 95 runs in the powerplay and middle overs, respectively. Freedom had already lost five wickets by the time the death overs began, and two more within eight balls of the death phase for a mere three more runs. It’s not like MINY really stepped up at the end, scoring only 40 more. They nearly lost two points, but they managed to win because of Owen and Chapman.
With the victory, Freedom now has six points from four games, which is the same as the Texas Super Kings. However, due of the Super Kings’ higher net run-rate, Freedom is currently ranked third. With one victory from four games, MINY is currently in fourth place.