New York Warriors 109 for 4 (Carter 41*, Harmeet 2-8) beat Atlanta Riders 103 for 6 (Simmons 41, Uthappa 32, Sohail 4-15) by six wickets
With both openers departing within three balls of each other, Atlanta were 83 for 2 in 8.1 overs. Hamilton Masakadza hit his first ball for a six to make it 98 for 2 with one over left. That’s when Sohail rattled them. With the first two balls of the tenth over he bowled Masakadza and Hammad Azam before completing his hat-trick by trapping Grant Elliott lbw. That was the second hat-trick of the day – Fidel Edwards had picked one up earlier in the day – but Sohail went on to do one better. With his next ball, he cleaned up Harmeet Singh to pick up four in four.
New York didn’t have a great start to their chase and by the second over, they were 15 for 2. It soon became 39 for 3 when Harmeet removed Tillakaratne Dilshan for his second wicket.
With 62 required from five overs, Shahid Afridi hit Nasir Hossain for a four and a six. In the next over, Carter picked up two consecutive fours off Elias Sunny.
Rayad Emrit removed Afridi in the eighth over, and Mohammad Irfan conceded only eight in the ninth to put Atlanta ahead. That left Kamrul with 21 to defend in the last over but he slipped up. Carter hit his first ball for a six, and a single and a wide later, Misbah too cleared the boundary.
With seven required from two balls, Carter hit back-to-back sixes to wrap it up.
Texas Chargers 60 for 2 (Hafeez 27) beat New Jersey Triton’s 57 for 9 (Trego 13, Edwards 3-5, Adil 3-12) by eight wickets
The situation worsened for the Triton’s as Adil struck again, hitting the stumps with a full-length delivery to dismiss Chris Barnwell. Triton’s hit their first four of the innings in the fifth over when Danza Hyatt dispatched a low full toss from Sohail Tanvir towards deep midwicket. Skipper Gautam Gambhir walked in at No. 8 but was out second ball, deceived by a slower delivery from Imran Khan.
A swing and a miss from Bipul Sharma handed Edwards his hat-trick in the ninth over as the full-length delivery clipped the top of the off stump.
Chasing a mere 58, Chargers were off in a flash as Mohammad Hafeez slammed Peter Trego for a six and a four off consecutive deliveries in the first over. He followed it up with two successive sixes off Liam Plunkett in the next over. However, Plunkett responded by taking the pace off and castling Hafeez with his very next delivery.
Morrisville Unity (Jayasuriya 27, Pienaar 23*, Powell 1-3) beat California Knights 100 for 4 (Finch 63*, Pienaar 3-13) by seven wickets
Sent in, Knights got off to a slow start as the opening pair of Finch and Jacques Kallis struggled to find boundaries consistently.
Finch eventually slammed Najaf Shah for a boundary straight down the ground and followed it up with a splendid six over third man in the third over to change the momentum. However, his opening partner was sent back in the next over as he fell prey to quicker delivery from Pienaar.
Finch struggled to get his timing right but kept his composure and was the only Knights batter to reach double figures. Meanwhile, Pienaar continued to weave his magic and dismissed Milind Kumar and Suresh Raina off consecutive deliveries in his second over.
Finch continued to hold the fort from the other end and brought up his fifty off 25 balls. But with no other batter finding the boundary in the last five overs, Knights ended with a below-par total.
During the chase, Parthiv Patel and Chris Gayle added 30 in 2.5 overs before a quicker delivery from Ashley Nurse dismissed Gayle. Parthiv followed suit in the next over, getting out to Ricardo Powell.