ILT20 2023: Nicholas Pooran successfully anchors MI Emirates’ chase against Sharjah Warriors

In the sixth match of the International League 2023 (ILT20) on Tuesday, January 17, at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi, MI Emirates managed to achieve a comfortable 6-wicket victory over Sharjah Warriors.

was a clinical performance from the Kieron Pollard-led side who dominated right from the word ‘go’ and outplayed the opposition in all departments of the game. The Emirates bowlers were simply outstanding with the ball in hand which ended up restricting the Warriors to a manageable total in the end.

MI Emirates captain Kieron Pollard won the toss and elected to bowl first. His bowlers did not let him down and regularly delivered wins from one end.

Rahmanullah Gurbaz started off proceedings with a couple of boundaries off Trent Boult in the opening over but the New Zealand pacer had the last laugh with a bouncer in his next over.

Fazalhaq Farooqui was then smashed for four boundaries in a single over by Tom Kohler-Cadmore as Warriors raced to 59/1 after just six overs. From hereon, they would have anticipated setting their opponent a mammoth total to chase down. However, the runs did start drying up and the second half of the innings completely belonged to the bowling side.

Bravo got rid of Dawid Malan to engineer a collapse as Moeen Ali found the long-on fielder in the very next over.

However, opener Tom Kohler-Cadmore hit back at the bowlers from one end. Cadmore, who had gone past fifty by then, failed to read a flipper from Tahir and was castled for 55.

However, Paul Walter scored an unbeaten 28 off 18 balls to help Sharjah Warriors post a respectable total of 146/7 in the closing moments. In bowling, the all-rounder Dwayne Bravo took 3 wickets for 25 runs and Imran Tahir took two wickets for 17 runs.

In reply, Will Smeed and Muhammad Waseem helped the Emirates get off to a good start with a 36-run opening stand before the former’s dismissal for 29. Waseem slowly got to 40 following a six and a four off Walter and Nicholas Pooran rounded off that over with a streaky boundary to take 15 off it.

Nabi then followed it up with a maiden over that also saw him get rid of Waseem but Pooran and Kieron Pollard hit four sixes over the next three overs to drastically bring the equation down.

Skipper Kieron Pollard was dismissed for 19 by Junaid Siddique but it didn’t matter much as his West Indies partner Nicholas Pooran played the last-man role with an unbeaten 39 off 21 balls.

Brief scores: Sharjah Warriors 146/7 in 20 overs (Tom Kohler-Cadmore 55, Paul Walter 28*; Dwayne Bravo 3/25, Imran Tahir 2/17) lost to MI Emirates 147/4 in 17.1 overs (Muhammad Waseem 40, Nicholas Pooran 39*; Junaid Siddique 2/24) by six wickets.