Smith and Gous power Washington Freedom to the highest run chase in T20 history
Washington Freedom chased down 267 against MI New York in the Major League Cricket Eliminator, the biggest successful pursuit men’s T20 cricket has seen, with Steven Smith and Andries Gous tearing the game away at Oakland.
Jul 16, 2026
There have been wild scoring nights in Twenty20 cricket, and then there was the Oakland Coliseum. Washington Freedom hunted down 267 against MI New York in the Major League Cricket Eliminator, the highest successful run chase men’s T20 cricket has ever seen, and they knocked it off with eight balls to spare.
The target should have been the story. MI New York had piled up 266 for 9 batting first, a total that has closed out plenty of finals. On this night it barely lasted the second innings, because Steven Smith and Andries Gous decided the chase was a formality long before it was.
Smith and Gous turn a mountain into a stroll
Gous set the tone and never let it drop. The USA opener made 132 from 51 balls, a brutal, clean-hitting innings of 12 sixes that answered every big shot MI New York had managed in the first innings. It was the first century by a USA batter in Major League Cricket, and it came in the run chase that broke the format’s biggest record.
Alongside him, Smith produced the fastest hundred of his career. The Australian reached three figures off 40 balls, quicker than the 41-ball effort he posted earlier this year, and finished unbeaten on 110 from 48. The pair added 241 for the third wicket, the highest partnership for that wicket T20 cricket has seen, and Washington cantered home at 270 for 4 with the chase wrapped up inside 19 overs.
For a chase of this size to feel comfortable tells you how far ahead of the required rate they stayed. The equation never tightened, the asking rate never bit, and MI New York’s bowlers spent the back half of the innings looking for damage limitation that never came.
Pooran’s blitz was not enough
What made the chase so remarkable is that MI New York had done plenty right themselves. Nicholas Pooran tore into the bowling for 106 from 33 balls, reaching his hundred in just 31 deliveries for the fastest century in the tournament’s history, with Kieron Pollard’s 64 and a fifty from Quinton de Kock adding to the damage. Their 266 for 9 was the kind of total that usually settles a knockout on its own.
It was, in the end, the losing score in a game that produced three centuries in a single T20 for the first time in the sport’s history. The match also set a new record for sixes in a T20, with 51 clearing the rope across the two innings, a number that captures how relentless the hitting was from the first over to the last.
A record that had stood for weeks
The previous mark for the highest successful chase in men’s T20 cricket was Punjab Kings’ pursuit of 265 against Delhi Capitals in IPL 2026. It had looked like the sort of freak result that might stand for years. It lasted a matter of months before Washington went past it, and they did so in a knockout game with a season on the line.
The win keeps Washington Freedom alive in the MLC 2026 playoffs. They move into the next playoff against the San Francisco Unicorns, with the winner earning a place in the final against the Los Angeles Knight Riders. MI New York, for all of Pooran’s fireworks, are out.
Nights like this one push the argument that batting has run away from bowling in the shortest format, and that the bowlers have run out of answers. What Oakland served up was closer to an exhibition than a contest. It still counted for everything.