Gous, Smith tons powers Washington Freedom to world-record chase

Washington Freedom pulled off the highest successful chase in T20 history, running down 266 to beat defending champions MI New York by six wickets in the Eliminator of MLC 2026 at the Oakland Coliseum, a game that also produced the format's joint second biggest partnership (241) and, at 51, more sixes than any T20 match has managed before.

The partnership of Andries Gous' 132 and Steve Smith's unbeaten 110 surpassed the previous record for any wicket in domestic or franchise leagues, which was set in 2016 by Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers, as Freedom reached home with eight balls remaining and eliminated the holders.

Nicholas Pooran's blistering century, just one ball slower than Chris Gayle's record-setting 30-ball century, was the foundation for MI New York's total. Kieron Pollard's 64 and Quinton de Kock's 51 provided solid support. Rachin Ravindra, who finished with 4 for 29, would have to cast a spell from a strange place in order for Freedom to have any hope of making the impossible possible.

There is a point in T20 cricket, reached more often now than the format's early theorists ever imagined, where scores stop feeling like scores and start to feel like weather - something that happens to you, rather than something you chase. However, for half of the game, 266 appeared to be exactly that number. By the time Freedom had finished with it, 266 looked instead like an opening bid.

Because this was modern T20 batting on a flat surface and skewed boundary sizes at its absolute best, dealt almost entirely in sixes. Gous and Smith batted with the peculiar calm of men who had decided, quite early on, that the game's usual anxieties would not apply to them tonight, not when they had nothing left to lose in an Eliminator after conceding 266 runs. This was the case even though they joined hands at 10 for 2. MI New York had good reason to feel calm about everything for a long time. Until they started releasing catches. Nostush Kenjige spilled another sitter, Pollard dropped one, and Shakib Al Hasan dropped one.

Between all of that, Gous and Smith rained sixes on MI New York. Straight after Kenjige dropped Smith, Gous smashed Romario Shepherd for four sixes in a row before closing out that 13th over - 29 runs in all - with a four. After attempting to score 21 in the subsequent game, Pollard ended it by firing the ball back at Smith in anger. He then left the field to treat a finger that had become dislocated while dropping a catch. The over that followed was bowled by Tajinder Dhillon, who conceded 31 runs, and MI New York scored a staggering 81 runs in those three overs alone.

It made a chase that had been asking around 14 an over for most of the innings down to a meager 42 off 30. There was also some symmetry amid the brutality. Both batters needed 40 balls to reach their centuries, which neatly wrapped up their own milestones. Smith, who has long been known for his steely powers of concentration in the whites, now had his fastest T20 hundred, bolstering his frequent claims to feature at the LA Olympics in 2028. Gous became the first American player to score a hundred in the MLC.

The stunned MI New York team was left to wonder how it had all come to this at the end. They had hit a record 29 sixes and were just as amazing with the bat, if not more destructive. They had scored 211 after 13 overs of their innings, with Pollard scoring 42 runs off 14 balls. When Smith turned to Ravindra, the left-arm spinner repaid the trust by bowling the first over of the innings without a boundary and losing Dhillon. Ravindra struck twice more in his next over, dismissing Shakib and Romario Shepherd, and then took out Kunwarjeet Singh in his third. Ravindra finished with astonishing figures of 4 for 29 despite giving up 16 in his final over. In the most crucial phase of one of T20 cricket's most chaotic games, MI New York only managed 33 runs from their final five overs.