Washington Liberty 270 for 4 (Ghous 132, Smith 110*, Shakib 2-34) win Michigan New York 266 for 9 (Pooran 106, Pollard 64, de Kock 51, Ravindra 4–29, Dwarshuis 2–42) for six wickets
The Liberty will now face the San Francisco Unicorns in Eliminator 2. The winner of this match will face the Los Angeles Knight Riders in the final of MLC 2026. The result looked improbable when Pooran and Kieron Pollard, who had hit 1000 T20 sixes en route to a 25-ball 64, were smashing the ball all over the place, but the game turned into an unlikely star turn with a ball from Rachin. Ravindra, who took 4 for 28 bowling figures in the 14th, 16th, 18th and 20th overs of MI New York’s innings. When he took the field, the Cricinfo forecaster predicted that MINY, who had scored 211 for 3 in 13 overs, would get to 296. They would eventually only managed to reach 266 for 9, and that too only after Trent Boult ended the innings with 6, 6, 4 off Ravindra’s last three balls. Freedom’s task, of course, was still a Himalayan one and it became even more difficult when another left-arm bowling all-rounder, Shakib Al Hasan, took the new ball and took two wickets in his first three overs. However, at 10 from 2 it was all Goes and Smith. They were second to Pooran in terms of how quickly they reached their hundred – both reached the test point in 40 balls – but there was no let-up on either side: they gave away 241 for just 89 for the third wicket – jointly the second-highest partnership for any wicket in all T20s. And the MINY fielders helped them in this regard, converting four catch chances and conceding a run out in four overs. The last chance came in the 29-run 13th over, in which Ghous smashed Romario Shepherd for 6, 6, 6, 6, 4, and this over was followed by 21 runs from Pollard and 31 runs from Tajinder Singh, during which Ghous became the first US batter to score an MLC hundred.
In the end, Freedom needed just 42 from 30 balls and they reached the target with eight balls remaining, despite the loss of Ghous and Nikhil Chaudhary as the finish line approached.