Kieron Pollard Leads MI Emirates to Historic Second ILT20 Final Appearance

Sharjah:

MI Emirates set the finals date with Desert Vipers in the fourth edition of International League T20 with a comfortable win over Abu Dhabi Knight Riders in the second qualifier in Sharjah. It was yet another comprehensive performance from the 2024 champions as they chased down the modest target of 121 runs with seven wickets in hand. With this win, Kieron Pollard also created history in T20 cricket as captain, completing his 100 wins while at the helm in the format.

Pollard became only the sixth captain in the history of T20 cricket to achieve the historic landmark and joins the elite list of MS Dhoni, James Vince, Rohit Sharma, Faf du Plessis and Daren Sammy to do so in the shortest format of the game. Dhoni, on expected lines, is on top of the list with a staggering 192 wins while Rohit stands in this aspect, having secured 140 victories as captain of India and Mumbai Indians.

Most wins as captain in T20 cricket

What happened in the match?

As far as the match is concerned, MI Emirates restricted the Knight Riders to just 120 runs after opting to bowl first. Allah Ghazanfar, Muhammad Rohid Khan and Fazalhaq Farooqi shared seven wickets between them. Meanwhile, for the Knight Riders, Alishan Sharafu smashed an unbeaten 50 but the rest of the batters struggled as they could only post 120 runs for the loss of eight wickets.

In response, MI Emirates also struggled to get going and at 36/2 after 7.1 overs, it seemed that the match could go down to the wire. However, Shakib Al Hasan and Tom Banton had other ideas as they stitched 82 runs together for the third wicket with the latter scorin an unbeaten 63 off 53 balls. The Emirates chased down the target in just 16.1 overs to lock their spot in the final yet again.

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