Paarl Royals 90 for 3 (Tribe 34, Miller 19*, Bosch 1-9) beat MI Cape Town 88 (Hendricks 18, Raza 4-13, Baartman 2-8, Mokoena 2-10) by seven wickets
MI Cape Town (MICT) suffered a significant blow to their SA20 title defence as they slumped to a fourth defeat in five games – their third at home, and second to Paarl Royals (PR) in this edition of the tournament. And those are not the worst of the statistics. Against PR, MICT were bowled out for 88 – their lowest score batting first in SA20’s short history, and the lowest score batting first at Newlands in a full 20-over game across the four editions of the competition.
With half their fixtures played, MICT remain at the bottom of the points table, and will need to start winning – and potentially a few favours from other results – to make the playoffs.
PR, meanwhile, have recovered well from a massive loss in the tournament opener to move up to second on the log with a third successive win. They also did their net run rate a huge favour by chasing down the target of 89 in 13 overs to earn a bonus point.
Everything went right for PR after MICT chose to bat at what had been a high-scoring ground before Sunday. PR’s crafty attack proved difficult to get away, and also dangerous, as Sikandar Raza, playing a competitive match for the first time at Newlands, picked 4 for 13, while Ottneil Baartman got 2 for 8 in 2.4 overs. PR lost three wickets in pursuit of 89, but eventually got there comfortably as David Miller sealed the win with a six.
PR control powerplay – with ball
After unsuccessful chases in their three of their first four completed matches, MICT opted to try something different and bat first against PR. But they found the going just as tough. Against a well-managed PR attack that used spin in the form of Bjorn Fortuin to start, rotated between the young quick Nqobani Mokoena and the experienced Baartman, and then had Raza’s golden arm for the breakthrough, MICT scored just 33 runs in the first six overs and breached the boundary only twice.
It was their fourth-lowest powerplay in SA20 history, and showed a level of tentativeness they have not been known for. MICT also lost both openers after Rassie van der Dussen sliced Raza to square leg and Ryan Rickelton miscued Mokoena to mid-off. They were 53 for 2 at the halfway stage, and things didn’t get any easier.
Full report to follow…
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source africa.espn.com ’
