The second season of the SA20 may have started with a damp squib but the remainder of the first week was anything but with a flurry of runs, scintillating contests and packed houses with the tournament immediately building on its successful first season.
Defending champions, Sunrisers Eastern Cape, endured the frustration of a rain washout against the Joburg Super Kings on Wednesday but the second game, in rainy Durban, did produce a result with the Super Giants prevailing at Kingsmead against MI Cape Town.
Ryan Rickelton smashed 87 from 5 balls and captain Kieron Pollard rolled back the years with 31* from 14 balls to set the visitors up with an impressive 207-5 but it wasn’t enough Heinrich Klaasen producing one of his ‘specials’, an astonishing 85 from just 35 balls with eight sixes and four fours.
Nonetheless it seemed a touch generous when the DLS method pronounced the Durban side victors by 11-runs when rain finished an apparently evenly-poised game at 177-6 after 16.3 overs.
Paarl Royals started their campaign with a convincing 27-run win against the Pretoria Capitals at Boland Park. Captain David Miller made light work of a torpid pitch top-scoring with 41 from 33 balls in a total of 160-7 which was far more competitive than it looked.
Englishman Phil Salt whacked 39 from 31 balls at the top of the order but the bowlers soon took charge with Lungi Ngidi (1-23), Tabraiz Shamsi (1-22) and West Indian Obed McCoy (1-26) all proving exceptionally difficult to score against as the visitors limped to 133-7 in reply.
MI Cape Town dismantled the Joburg Super Kings by 98-runs at the Wanderers in the first of Saturday’s double-header posting an eye-watering 243-5 before dismissing the home side for just 145 to claim the first bonus point of this year’s tournament.
Rassie van der Dussen (104 from 50 balls, 9×4, 6×6) and Rickelton (98 from 49 balls, 6×4, 8×6) added exactly 200 for the first wicket in brilliant style against a bowling attack enduring a collective ‘bad day at the office.’ Leus du Plooy’s 48 from 24 balls was scant consolation.
The Super Giants made it two wins from two with a convincing 35-run victory against the Sunrisers at St.George’s Park on Saturday evening with Jon-Jon Smuts (75 from 38 balls, 4×4, 7×6) and Trinidadian Nicholas Pooran (60* from 3, 5×4, 4×6) adding 100 for the third wicket in a total of 225-3.
Only three of the home side’s batters reached double figures – Englishman Tom Abell (65) and Tristan Stubbs (55) making rapid half centuries with captain Aiden Markram contributing 29.
The Royals completed the ‘double’ against the Capitals winning by 10-runs at Supersport Park just 48 hours after their first game in Paarl. In a format usually dominated by the batters it was McCoy who delivered the telling blow by conceding just three runs from the final over of the match with the Capitals requiring 14 to win.
Earlier Miller (75* from 42 balls) and Mitchell van Buuren (72* from 40) shared an unbroken fourth wicket partnership of 141 striking 15 fours and six sixes between them in a total of 210-3.
Rilee Rossouw’s 45-ball 82 (10×4, 4×6) provided impetus in the middle after a flying start from Will Jacks (58 from 34balls) but Lungi Ngidi (4-39) made incisive inroads at the right times allowing McCoy (4-0-30-1) to finish the job.
© MWP