MI Emirates have successfully defended their ILT20 title as they coasted themselves to a 45-run victory over Dubai Capitals in the finals on 17th February 2024. Nicholas Pooran and co. displayed a good brand of cricket in the finals and made sure that they were right on top.
Batting first, MI Emirates posted a formidable total of 208 runs on the board. Their top 4 batters played exceedingly well and made sure that the Emirates get off to the best possible start in the summit clash of ILT20 2024.
Skipper Nicholas Pooran top-scored with a fiery knock of 57* runs in 27 deliveries and his knock was packed with 2 fours and 6 sixes. He had a scintillating strike-rate of 211.11 in his innings that gave MI Emirates, a grand finish.
Andre Fletcher too scored a half-century and his innings came off just 37 deliveries and it was laced with 3 fours and 4 sixes.
The openers in the form of Muhammad Waseem and Kusal Perera scored 43 and 38 runs respectively in this game versus the Dubai Capitals.
For Dubai Capitals, Olly Stone, Sikandar Raza and Zahir Khan took 1 wicket each and couldn’t stop the run-flow off the willows of the MI Emirates batters.
The MI Emirates bowlers had a fantastic outing
Akeal Hosein started off on the best possible note when he dismissed Dubai Capitals opener, Leus du Plooy, for a duck in the very first over. The MI Emirates bowlers were right on the money and delivered the goods with the white-cherry with perfection.
Vijayakanth Viyaskanth and Trent Boult took 2 wickets each and set the stage for the other bowlers to capitalise.
Dubai Capitals kept losing wickets in regular intervals and did not have a solid partnership. When a team is gunning down such an imposing total in a final, then there needs to be a few good partnerships.
Skipper Sam Billings and Tom Banton scored 40 and 35 runs respectively for Dubai Capitals but none of the other batters got their bearings right on this day.
Sikandar Raza, who bagged the player of the tournament award, and was consistently performing with both the ball and the bat, departer for only 10 runs in 13 deliveries in the all-important finals.
Jason Holder tried his level best towards the fag end of the innings but the pressure created in the middle overs was too hard to overcome.
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