Paarl Royals 150 for 5 (Miller 71*, Lion-Cachet 45, Nortje 2-21, Jansen 2-25) beat Sunrisers Eastern Cape 149 (Hermann 47, Mokoena 4-34, Baartman 3-36) by five wickets
Royals bowlers lock down the death
Mokoena bowled hard into the pitch, and switched up his pace, to claim the richest rewards – a career-best 4 for 34 in his eighth senior T20. Baartman bowled two of the last four overs and gave away only a single boundary. He finished with 3 for 36. Mujeeb finished with 1 for 30.
Miller bats like no one else
Pretty much every batter who came to the crease found hitting the ball cleanly a challenge, with plenty of tackiness on this Gqeberha track. Miller’s innings was incredibly fluent in comparison, punishing a loose delivery from Anrich Nortje first ball, before launching Tharindu Ratnayake’s offspin over the deep extra cover boundary next over. Ratnayake would become his major victim of the afternoon, as Miller crashed 29 runs off his bowling alone.
Right through the innings, Miller found the boundary with ease, never letting the required rate climb too far above 10, even when digging his team out of substantial early trouble. He hit five sixes and four fours in all.
Sunrisers take out Royals’ top order
The hosts’ best stretch of the game was the first seven overs of the chase, in which Royals scored at no faster than five and over, and lost four wickets. The dismissals came in sets of two. In the fourth over, Marco Jansen’s extra bounce led to Asa Tribe chipping one to mid-off, before Lhuan-dre Pretorius tickled a bouncer down the leg side and was caught spectacularly by a diving Quinton de Kock, holding the chance in an outstretched right glove.
The next double-strike was down to Nortje’s exceptional bowling. He first had Kyle Verreyne dragging on, before a ripsnorting short delivery outside off was too hot for Rubin Hermann, who could only nick it to de Kock.
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