Oakland witnessed a record 51 sixes as three batters hit centuries in the same men’s T20 game for the very first time, and the efforts of Andries Gous and Steven Smith eventually trumped Nicholas Pooran‘s 31-ball hundred – the fastest in the MLC – as Washington Freedom won Eliminator 1 by completing the biggest chase in T20 history.

Freedom will now meet San Francisco Unicorns in Eliminator 2. The winner of that match will face LA Knight Riders in the MLC 2026 final.

The result had seemed inconceivable when Pooran and Kieron Pollard – who went past 1000 T20 sixes on his way to a 25-ball 64 – were pummelling the ball to all parts, but the game turned courtesy an unlikely star turn with the ball from Rachin Ravindra, who took 4 for 28 while bowling the 14th, 16th, 18th and 20th overs of MI New York‘s innings. When he came on, Cricinfo’s forecaster predicted that MINY – who were 211 for 3 in 13 overs – would get to 296. They eventually only managed 266 for 9, that too only after Trent Boult finished the innings with 6, 6, 4 off Ravindra’s last three balls.

Freedom’s task was still Himalayan, of course, and it became even steeper when another left-arm-spin-bowling allrounder, Shakib Al Hasan, took the new ball and took two wickets in his first three overs. From 10 for 2, however, it was all about Gous and Smith.

They were second-best to Pooran in terms of how quickly they got to their hundreds – both got to the landmark in 40 balls – but there was no let-up from either end: they put on 241 off just 89 balls for the third wicket – the joint second-biggest partnership for any wicket in all T20s. And MINY’s fielders helped them along, putting down four catching chances and missing a run out in the space of four overs. The final chance came in a 29-run 13th over in which Gous smashed Romario Shepherd for 6, 6, 6, 6, 4, and that over was followed by a 21-run over from Pollard and a 31-run over from Tajinder Singh during which Gous became the first USA batter to score an MLC hundred.

At the end of that over, Freedom needed just 42 off 30 balls, and they got there with eight balls remaining despite losing Gous and Nikhil Chaudhary as the finish neared.