Washington Freedom vs MI New York, 5th Match, Major League Cricket 2026 - CommentaryWAF vs MINY, 5th Match, Major League Cricket 2026 - Commentary

Kieron Pollard broke Chris Gayle's record for most runs by a player in T20 cricket. Mitchell Owen almost broke Chris Gayle's record for the highest individual score in a T20 game. It was an absolute run feast today. We have got two more games left here in Dallas before the MLC caravan moves to California. Join us on the journey for another double-header tomorrow. Good night!

Steve Smith: It was good. Nice to bounce back from last night. I felt we started exceptionally well with the bat. Mitch (Owen) was phenomenal. The best seat in the house for most of it. And got us off to another absolute flyer, really setting us up for the innings. And post 245 was a good score. We probably were on track at one point to probably get 270 odd. But they (MINY bowlers) executed really nicely at the back end. We couldn't quite get it away. But it was a nice score in the end anyway. (On the batting process)  I think you just got to trust the players around because we've got some quality players in this lineup. And today was tricky. As I said, I thought they executed really well at the back end. But we've got some quality players there that know how to play the game. And if they spend some time in the middle, I'm sure they're going to come good and we're going to post some big scores for us at the back end when we need it as well. So we're comfortable. 1-1 out of two (on the results). It's a nice spot. We go on a bit of a break now. (About the tight schedule,) It's pretty condensed. You obviously have to manage the bowlers, especially when you have back-to-back games. I thought everyone that played today stood up and did a really good job. And I'm just pleased that we were able to bounce back after the loss last night. 

Kieron Pollard (3/3): (You, Chris, as well as Dwayne (Bravo), all those years ago, could you have imagined that the road would lead to more than 14,500 runs? No, hell no. I'd be lying if I said that. But what I'm proud of, as an individual and with all these other guys, as you mentioned, Dwayne and Chris, is that we took a leap of faith and we got ridiculed a lot for it. Again, now you live to see guys at a young age even retiring from international cricket to play franchise cricket because again cricket is not just a sport anymore, it's a business. But one thing I've understood in life is that when you do something different, change is something that we're not really accustomed to. So again, I'm happy that I've lived the day to see it, and I hope everyone who would have criticised us over a period of time can sit back and say, cheers. We don't need a sorry, right... we respect each and every format of the game, but understand that, just as the technology, everything is changing.

Kieron Pollard (2/3): (How much longer for Kieron Pollard?) I don't know. I won't put a timeline to it. Faf (du Plessis) is my inspiration right now (smiles). But having said that, I think it's more about personal pride and motivation and wanting to play the sport and wanting to help the youngsters in every team that I play for. And once that desire is there, I'm going to continue, but it's not going to be at the expense of any young person who wants to take the mantle. For me, I'm just enjoying it at the moment. I'm only played three or four tournaments now. I'm on the other side of the rope as well from a coaching capacity, and I think that has also helped me in the latter part of my career because now I have to preach what I say and I have to go and do what I say. Again, it has helped me personally, so I'll just continue to do that as long as I think I'm fit enough to do that. (Is there a difficulty switching from one (role) to the other?) Not really. Again, once you keep yourself in shape from a physical perspective, I guess the muscle memory of cricket will always be there. After the IPL, I went home. I took three, four days off and for two and a half weeks I was pounding early in the morning because I said personal pride is more important to me than anything. So I'm not going to come to a tournament unprepared and just say I'm going to play on legacy. I think that's not the right example to set for the youngsters coming up.

Kieron Pollard (1/3): (How do you achieving the record? Congratulations!) I feel well. Thank you very much. Thanks to the almighty for giving me the opportunity to showcase my talent on the world stage for the last 20 years or so. So thanks for that, to my friends and my family who have supported me, and thank you to everybody. (All through your career, you were batting in the middle-order, how hard is it to keep a strike rate up?) It's obviously very difficult. Surpassing, Chris Gayle, is someone that we look up to in the West Indies over a period of time. He's has done great things in all formats of cricket, so again, Crampy (Chris Gayle), I apologise. But again, we both at the top there. Having said that, batting at number seven, number six, it's very, very difficult. But somebody needs to do the dirty work and everyone rushes to bat at the top of the order. But a cricket game is of 11 people, so everyone has a role to play, I guess my role over the period of time was to finish matches and I embraced that. Once you embrace the challenge and you practise for it, good things come.

Mitchell Owen | PoTM: (On his batting) It was good fun, nice to get a few off the middle and nice ground here, has always been a good wicket and nice to spend some time. I probably felt it last night - I didn't really apply myself enough because we know how good that wicket gets after the lights come into play. So I felt like I sort of needed to take a bit of responsibility after getting a good start and stay out there for a bit longer and get lucky and that's it. (On his batting plans) I sort of tend to stick into a simple process of trying to hit a few sixers. I mean, you've got to sort of read the wicket when you're batting first a little bit more, but it's a little bit easy with games before us, will be during the day, but it's definitely a nice track out there and like I said, lucky enough. (Did he read the bowlers better?) We'll see, I guess. I think they've bowled really well in the end to restrict us. I mean, they started bowling wide yorkers, so give credit to those guys. (Reflections on his innings) I'm a bit sore, so I need a bit of a bit of rest and recovery. But yeah, I'll just stick to my process and hopefully continue. 

Nic Pooran | MI New York Captain: Honestly, we felt we had a chance. 245 - (On Mitch Owen) He played a superb innings today and well done to him. I felt we bowled well to the other guys, but he played a superb innings today. Unfortunate dismissals at the top of the order - Monank fell early in the first over and Quinny got run-out unfortunately and then myself . We had another run-out, I'd say two run-outs in a 245-run chase hurt us, but we still made 200+ runs after losing 4 inside the batting powerplay, that's a good sign. Although we lost the game, it felt like a win. Everyone wanted him to score a hundred (on Kieron Pollard) - congrats to him, he just became the leading run-scorer in T20 cricket.  He proved why he's a legend and one of the best in the game. He's one of the leaders in this team, he got set, went all the way till the end and gave us a chance. Hopefully it hasn't damaged our net run-rate a lot, good for him.

23:21 Local Time, 04:21 GMT, 09:51 IST: Chasing 246 was always going to be tough and Maxwell almost killed the game with a double-strike in the first three overs of the chase. He also effect the runout of QdK and the game was almost done by then. But Kieron Pollard didn't want to let this go easily. He got his fifty off 32 balls and then completed his 2nd T20 hundred in the next 24 balls. Pollard also went on break Chris Gayle's record for most runs by an individual in T20s. Romario hung in there for a bit, Corbin Bosch played an excellent hand but the lower-order was left to do too much.

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