It was an MLC 2026 game of extreme twists and turns, all packed into 39 overs of big hits, lots of wickets, batting collapses and a heroic all-round effort from Brody Couch. The San Francisco Unicorns bowler’s interventions with ball first and then bat won points they really wanted.

Unicorns could have been chasing a few more than 192 had Seattle Orcas not added just 53 runs in the last ten overs, going from 138 for 1 to 191 all out with four balls left in their innings. In the chase, Unicorns were themselves 26 for 3 in three-and-a-half overs.

But Lhuan-dre Pretorius, who has been in special form, came good again. He took charge of the powerplay to start with, taking Unicorns to 51 for 3, with 33 off 16 balls in that period. The shot that made jaws drop was the one-handed flick over fine leg off Jasdeep Singh, Orcas’ bowling star from their previous game. The mayhem continued as Pretorius brought up his fifty off just 23 balls, with another mighty blow, this time a slog sweep off Dasun Shanaka over midwicket.

Aaron Hardie was a willing, if not terribly enterprising, partner, scoring 28 in 20 balls in his 99-run stand off 48 deliveries with Pretorius, and it really was a one-man show at that point.

The twist came after the halfway mark of the innings as Pretorius fell to Cameron Gannon for 87 off 36 balls in a Unicorns collapse of 5 for 38. Gannon and Shanaka picked up two wickets each, and Unicorns were suddenly 163 for 8, still 29 runs away, with the lower-order batters left.

Enter Couch, who had earlier returned 3 for 41 as he ran through the Orcas middle order. The pressure of the situation hardly seemed to faze him as he first hit Jasdeep for a four in the 18th over, slammed Ottneil Baartman over midwicket for six in the 19th, and finally, with 12 runs needed in the last over, tonked Shanaka over midwicket for six off the second ball. Couch then levelled the scores with a slice over backward point for four. It was a proper Player-of-the-Match show.

Earlier, the Orcas innings was neatly divided into two halves.

Tim Seifert slammed 32 in 14 balls up top. His opening partner Shayan Jahangir top-scored for Orcas with 62 in 25 deliveries with four fours and six sixes. And Matthew Breetzke, at No. 3, hit 51 in 29 balls.

When Jahangir became the second batter out on the last ball of the tenth over, Orcas had 138 runs on the board. With Breetzke there, and Shimron Hetmyer, Marcus Stoinis and Shanaka, among others, to follow, Orcas would have been looking at well over 200 – maybe even 220.

Instead, Couch, Ghulam Mudassar (2 for 15), Matthew Short (2 for 12) and Xavier Bartlett (2 for 30) triggered an enormous collapse, one that Orcas couldn’t cover for despite their bowlers doing almost as well as their opposite numbers.