MLC 2026 Eliminator - 'They are 15 short, boys' - Ponting does a Kallis as Freedom pull off record chase

Legend goes that Jacques Kallis said Australia were 10-15 runs short in that 438 ODI in Johannesburg in 2006. Ricky Ponting, who ended up on the losing side despite hitting 164 in that match, channelled his inner Kallis 20 years later, this time as head coach of Washington Freedom in the Eliminator 1. After MINY had posted 266 for 9 on an easy-paced, bash-through-the-line pitch surrounded by small boundaries at Oakland’s Coliseum, Ponting quipped “15 short, boys” and roused spirits of his players at the halfway mark in the dressing room.

“At halftime we made a joke because Ricky, our coach, was part of that 438 game in South Africa and Kallis made the comment saying they’re 15 short and he just came out and said ’15 short, boys’ and that just made the changing room a bit relaxed,” Gous said at his post-match press conference after cracking 132 off 51 balls.

“Then, we just go out there… it’s actually such a simple play and you just got to keep going and going and going. So it was quite nice in that sense that there was no tactics about it, it was just swinging from the hip and hoping you hit it. I think we only said when it was 26 needed from 28 balls or 27 balls that we said: ‘okay now we can start planning something’ but before that it was just let’s just keep swinging let’s keep swinging and lucky for us we just kept connecting it.”

Before Freedom began their mammoth chase of 267, Cricinfo’s Forecaster gave them a mere 9.96% chance of winning the match. That dropped further to 2.91% after they lost both Mitch Owen and Rachin Ravindra within three overs. Smith and Gous then went about repairing the innings before they went on a six-hitting spree. The duo hit 21 sixes between them, giving Freedom the belief that they were always in it, despite losing early wickets. It also created panic in the MINY camp and their attack eventually ran out of options and ideas after Kieron Pollard suffered an injury while attempting a catch in the outfield.

“Yeah that was truly special,” Gous said. “I think we [Smith and I] just try to keep it as simple as possible. You obviously chase 14-15 an over, there’s two boundaries an over and then a few singles and then you’re there. So from the seventh overs onwards we saw that we might be in with a chance and then at ten, I think it [asking rate] was 14-and-a-half and then we said okay it’s very possible and then by over 12 it was very tight for us, close for us. So yeah very happy with that.”

In a madcap game where the more fancied batters Pooran and Smith also struck centuries, it was Gous who stole the show and eventually walked away with the Player-of-the-Match award. After crashing an unbeaten 120 off 58 balls in an ILT20 knockout match for Desert Vipers last year, Gous became the first USA player to score a hundred in the MLC, in the league’s fourth season.

After reaching the landmark, the usually stoic Gous bared his emotions with a big roar and animated fist pump. He even screamed “Come on!” before his captain Smith wrapped him up in a hug. The rare show of emotion demonstrated how much it meant to Gous. It’s for moments like these that he relocated from South Africa to the USA in his late twenties.

Gous was actually poised to get to the milestone against the same opponents in Freedom’s final league-stage game of the season, but Ehsan Adil stopped him on 96 and left him crestfallen in Dallas. But Gous was not to be denied at Oakland’s Coliseum.

“Yeah, I always [wanted an MLC hundred],” Gous said. “When I realised I did what I did, I don’t know I normally don’t show emotion but it was just like everything just went out of me. Obviously getting 96 the previous game where I felt that I should have got to that hundred and it was really a big goal for me to get that first hundred.

“So to get it finally today and I think it’s more the belief in myself I made a really big decision this season that I’m really going to back myself really and believe that I can be one of the best players out there and I think that’s it’s more just the emotion coming out of that of all that belief that I have in myself now and the trust that you are good enough to perform and play innings like that.”

Gous also credited Rachin Ravindra for his left-arm fingerspin, which prevented MINY from surging to 300 and set up the chase for Freedom. Introduced into the attack in the 14th over, almost as an afterthought, Ravindra came away with 4 for 29 in his four overs. No other bowler among both sides took more than two wickets or conceded less than eight runs an over.

“Rachin has been the golden boy of taking wickets for us,” Gous said. “I don’t know actually what his average is but it must be very low bowling for Washington Freedom. He takes a lot of wickets in crucial times for us and he’s obviously a very valuable player for us and I’m just happy that tonight was his night.”

Perhaps, Gous was being a bit too generous. It was his night after all.

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