MLC 2025
Shepherd hit a crucial half-century. © MLC
The San Francisco Unicorns juggernaut rolls on. The Matthew Short-led side secured its sixth straight win of MLC 2025 to cruise into playoffs. At the receiving end of this performance was Seattle Orcas, who have now suffered their fifth consecutive defeat and are yet to break their duck on the points table. Short led the way for his side with a fiery half-century and then kick-started Orcas’ downfall in chase with a double-wicket over. He went on to finish with three wickets while Romario Shepherd, too hit a half-century and picked two wickets. Once these two broke through at the top, Haris Rauf dismantled the middle-order to lay the foundation for a comfortable 32-run victory.
Asked to bat first, the Unicorns lost the returning Finn Allen in just the second over but Short and Jake Fraser-McGurk pushed on with a breezy 68-run stand for the second wicket. Harmeet Singh, Orcas’ best bowler this season, caused a flutter through the middle-overs by dismissing both as well as Hassan Khan in the space of two overs. Gerald Coetzee and Obed McCoy joined in to leave the Unicorns in trouble at 103/6, before Shepherd stepped in to give his team a flying finish. Jessy Singh and Cameron Gannon bowled two tight overs before Shepherd hit the latter for a six in the penultimate over. He then hit McCoy for a hat trick of sixes in a 22-run 20th over that pushed the Unicorns to 176 for 8.
For the first 20-odd minutes of the chase, Orcas were fully in control. Shayan Jahangir started with two sixes off Carmi le Roux in the opening over and then smashed Bartlett around in a 15-run second over. Jahangir was the primary aggressor in a stand with David Warner as the pair hit 59 in the PowerPlay. Jahangir had put his team comfortably ahead of the eight-ball but Shepherd and Short combined once more to rattle the Orcas. Shepherd had Jahangir playing one onto the stumps and Short bowled a double-wicket over where he got rid of a scratchy Warner as well as Kyle Mayers – Orcas’ best batter of the season – for a three-ball duck. Orcas were truly in tricky territory in the following over from Haris Rauf when Heinrich Klaasen found the deep midwicket fielder. The post-PowerPlay wobble meant they were left with 100 to chase in the second half of the innings.
Shimron Hetmyer and Sujit Nayak attempted a late revival but once again Short arrived to nip it in the bud. He dismissed Nayak to break the stand, but Hetmyer counter-punched in the following over by hitting Bartlett for two fours and a six. The mountain however, was too steep for the West Indian to scale by himself. Rauf then came back and bowled a double-wicket over to take out Coetzee and the West Indian, effectively bringing an end to Orcas’ pursuit of first points for the season. From 127/7, Orcas added just 13 more before being bundled out in the 19th over.
Brief Scores:San Francisco Unicorns 176/8 in 20 overs (Romario Shepherd 56, Matthew Short 52; Harmeet Singh 3-22, Gerald Coetzee 3-34) beat Seattle Orcas 144 in 18.2 overs (Shayan Jahangir 40; Haris Rauf 4-32, Matthew Short 3-12, Romario Shepherd 2-16) by 32 runs
© Cricbuzz
