Short and Bartlett do it for Unicorns as Super Kings go down by one run
Super Kings dropped to No. 3 after failing to get 13 off the last over, with Unicorns going clear at the top after their seventh win
ESPNcricinfo staff
05-Jul-2025 • 20 hrs ago
Matthew Short batted from first ball to the last to lead Unicorns' batting effort • Sportzpics for MLC
San Francisco Unicorns 148 for 6 (Short 80, Hassan 40, Stoinis 3-32) beat Texas Super Kings 147 for 7 (Ferreira 39, Mukkamalla 34, Couch 2-26, Shepherd 2-26) by one run
The trend of low-scoring games in Lauderhill continued but this one - between table-toppers San Francisco Unicorns and Texas Super Kings - turned out to be a bit of a thriller.
Chasing 149 for victory, TSK started the last over looking for 13 for victory with Calvin Savage still in the middle. Savage, however, got to face only one ball from Xavier Bartlett. And though his partner Mohammad Mohsin slammed two fours, it came down to three from one, Bartlett sent in a low full-toss, and the two batters could only scramble one, Savage run out as he ran desperately back for a second to tie the game.
The result consolidated Unicorns' position at the top of the MLC 2025 points table, with 14 points from nine games, and TSK slipped to third with 12 points from nine.
Unicorns' win was set up by captain Matthew Short, who continued his fine run-scoring form to get back to the top of the run-scoring charts. He batted from the first ball to the last after he had been asked to bat by Faf du Plessis, scoring 80 from 63 balls with five fours and four sixes. But it took him till Hassan Khan's entry in the sixth over to find someone to bat with, Finn Allen, Jake Fraser-McGurk and Sanjay Krishnamurthi having fallen cheaply by then, Marcus Stoinis getting two of this three wickets for the match in that period.
Stoinis got the next one, of Hassan, too, but that was only in the 13th over, and after Hassan had scored 40 in 25 balls in a 69-run stand with Short.
Short carried on, with Romario Shepherd and Hammad Azam for company, to take Unicorns to 148, which might have looked just below par at the halfway stage, but turned out to be just about enough.
And that's because Brody Couch set the ball rolling in the defence with the wickets of the openers - du Plessis and Smit Patel - by the fourth over, and despite contributions from Stoinis (34 in 29 balls) and Donovan Ferreira (39 in 20), TSK were always slightly behind the eight ball. Then it came down to the last over, and Bartlett held his nerve to win it for his team.