Washington Freedom vs Los Angeles Knight Riders, 24th Match, Major League Cricket 2026 - CommentaryWAF vs LAKR, 24th Match, Major League Cricket 2026 - Commentary

Two crucial points for Knight Riders and they have jumped to third place on the table. It's a double-header tomorrow with MINY taking on the Orcas before the Knight Riders are back on the field again to play the Unicorns. See you all in a few hours from now. Goodnight!

Jason Holder | Knight Riders captain: (It was a game filled with moments. Which moment won you this one?) I think the spell by both Ali Khan and Sunil (Narine). Those two spells I think set us apart. I think Russell also bowled a really crucial spell for us. The guys hung in there. It was a close-fought game. Probably a game that we really needed in terms of giving us momentum, giving that encouragement to win close games. So, credit to each and every individual. I thought it was an outstanding team effort. (You had an important decision to make around Narine bowling that third over. What went into that?) Look, at this stage, we need to get wickets. It's one of these wickets where you get set batters and it can become difficult to stem the flow of runs. So I had to back Sunil to come in and get a wicket for me. He's been doing it all season and credit to the way he came on again today. (How close are you to your best game as a team?) I don't think we're far off. I said that this morning, well, this afternoon actually, when we had our team meeting. I don't think we're far off. We've had, a lot of glimpses of great stuff, but I think all in all, we know we falter here and there in certain games. But today is really good that we got over the line in a real crucial game.

Steve Smith | Freedom captain: (You had them 17/2. What do you think changed from that point?) No, they had a good partnership there. Tromp and Fletcher played a really nice innings and got them into the game. But I thought our bowlers did a pretty good job. It was a little bit slower wicket than we've probably played on here in the last few. And I thought the bowlers executed their plans pretty well to restrict them to 190. So, yeah, we thought it was chaseable, wasn't to be. (With the bat, we saw a couple changes up the order. Lahiru and, Ben given promotions. What was the reason behind that?) We had left-handers matching up with the shorter side, so we wanted to try and make the most of that. I thought both of them played nice little cameos. Unfortunately, it just wasn't good enough to get us over the line tonight. (Busy weekend for you guys ahead. What's the message to the group as you get into it?) I think two really important games for us now. So, yeah, back-to-back on the weekend, day games. We need to win them, so that's our job.

Sunil Narine | PoTM: (On his new role of bowling in the powerplay). I think it just happened. I think we needed to keep the powerplay a little tighter, and I think we all came together and came up with a game plan. Happily it worked, and hopefully it can continue. (Your mentality when bowling to guys that you know are coming after you, Mitch Owen for example tonight?) No, I think when you focus on opponents, you're under pressure. I think you focus on what you can do, focus on the ability you have, and try to execute what you have been practicing. So I think whatever you practice, you try to execute as well as possible.

23:06 Local Time, 04:06 GMT, 09:36 IST: DJ Bravo is happy that his team got over the line but he's quite livid with the poor catching. They dropped some sitters and almost let the game slip away. But what they did so well was to choke the Freedom in the powerplay by bowling three overs of Sunil Narine. Both Steve Smith and Mitch Owen, possibly played the bowler than the ball. But to be fair, Narine didn't offer anything loose in that phase and when Owen couldn't resist the temptation of a big hit, he holed out. Dre Russ then took Smith and Rachin out in the same over to force a big dent. When Lahiru failed to put bat on ball to Ali Khan in the 9th over things looked bad but he played some smart shots to get the boundaries. Gous gave him great company as well. But Ali Khan managed to remove both in the same over. Shadley van Schalkwyk was taken for 40 runs in 2 overs to give a lot of hope for the Freedom, but the Knight Riders backed him and gave a third over and the bowler repaid the faith by getting two wickets in one over - the third time Freedom lost two in an over tonight.