Shepherd and de Kock make the difference as MI New York defend 132 in Pomona
Marcus Stoinis put on a strong all-round show, with 3 for 14 and 36 in 31 balls, but couldn’t take Seattle Orcas over the line
Cricinfo staff
Published: Jul 3, 2026, 5:39 AM
Romario Shepherd was the Player of the Match for his three top-order wickets • Sportzpics
MI New York 132 for 8 (De Kock 61, Stoinis 3-14, Baartman 2-23, Jasdeep 2-36) beat Seattle Orcas 127 for 9 (Stoinis 36, Shepherd 3-16) by five runs
Two games in Pomona in MLC 2026 and two games where batters, largely, have struggled. After a 37.1-over game on Wednesday where 228 runs were scored and 14 wickets fell, MI New York and Seattle Orcas put up 259 runs between them for the loss of 17 wickets. MI New York won, by just five runs, after putting up 132 to move to second spot on the table, while Orcas slipped to third.
Curiously, five of the six teams now have six points each, their positions on the table determined by their net run-rates, while the other, Los Angeles Knight Riders, have four and are in last place.
Orcas captain Marcus Stoinis won the toss and asked MI New York to bat, and their innings was primarily about Quinton de Kock, who scored a lion’s share of their runs, 61 in 46 balls with six fours and two sixes. De Kock’s partnerships of note were for the second wicket, with Nicholas Pooran, where 47 runs were scored in 37 balls, and then for the third, with Tajinder Singh, in which 35 were scored in 30 balls.
The rate of scoring in those partnerships provide an idea of the struggle the batters had, and the Orcas bowlers were regularly among the wickets otherwise. Stoinis was the best of the lot, with returns of 3 for 14, while Jasdeep Singh and Ottneil Baartman picked up two wickets apiece.
De Kock’s runs and those two partnerships eventually proved the difference in the low-scoring match, with six Orcas pairs putting up double-digit stands but none of them, before the tenth between Stoinis and Jasdeep, crossing 19.
The wickets started falling early – Orcas were 31 for 3 midway into the seventh over – and continued to fall till Stoinis, from No. 6, provided a barrier. The main destroyer was Romario Shepherd, later named the Player of the Match, for his 3 for 16, his victims Tim Seifert, Shehan Jayasuriya and Shimron Hetmyer.
Stoinis hit 36 in 31 balls, and the 30 runs he put on with Jasdeep late in the script – both hitting identical 15s off five balls each – did give Orcas hope. But when Stoinis fell off the second ball of the last over, to Kieron Pollard, it was over for Orcas.
