top of page

Halfway report: Where Paarl Royal steal a march

Writer's picture: Cricket SACricket SA

Halfway through the group stage of Betway SA20 Season 3 it’s the Western Cape teams, Paarl Royals and MI Cape Town, who have the widest smiles.

Paarl Royals sit atop the standings, having accumulated 16 points from their five matches to date. Undoubtedly, home form has been the catalyst to the boys in pink’s early-season run, with 3-from-3 at Boland Park, reiterating what a fortress it is for them.

Royals ascension to top is impressive considering they had quite an overhaul ahead of this season; with 11 changes in the playing personnel from last year and a new head coach in Trevor Penney. All have seemingly fitted in seamlessly, evidenced by the fact that all but their Rookie – Dewan Marais – have played in the first five matches of the campaign. Significantly, 18-year-old Lhuan-dre Pretorius sits atop the batting, MVP and Rising Star leaderboards while Afghanistan spinner Mujeeb Ur Rahman is the co-leader in the bowling ranks,

“It’s been great to get three wins in front of our home supporters, long may it last,” said captain David Miller after their latest win, against Joburg Super Kings, which sealed the halfway leaders’ position.

“We’ve got an adaptable squad, we’ve changed our (playing XI) probably every game according to the conditions and it’s managed to work at this stage. The last two years we’ve started very well and then finished very badly so that’s something we’re aware of … we’ll keep going game by game and keep winning our home games to see where we go.”

Meanwhile, down the N1, at Newlands the MI Cape Town brains trust can be pleased with their current log position, just two log points behind their neighbours, thanks to an opening night win at Sunrisers Eastern Cape and two home wins over Royals and JSK.

The experienced Rassie van der Dussen has been their leading batter, with 193 runs, with newbie Reeza Hendricks contributing a further 127. On the bowling front, ever-consistent George Linde has joined Delano Potgieter on five wickets. The feel-good spirit around MICT was further enhanced by their fans finally joining the Betway Catch 2 Million winners circle and them some as three clean one-handed catches were claimed during the JSK clash.

JSK, on the other hand, find themselves in mid-table alongside Sunrisers – on 10 points. The back-to-back defending champions started their quest for a three-peat in the worst possible way, losing three matches on the trot but subsequent bonus point victories over Durban’s Super Giants (home and away) have propelled them up the table into third place thanks to those two ‘BP’. They will hope that momentum shift continues – especially in this week of three straight matches in front of their passionate Orange Army at St George’s Park.

Faf du Plessis and his JSK troops, will hope for the opposite … having now lost four quick bowlers (Nandre Burger, Lizaad Williams, Beuran Hendricks and Gerald Coetzee being the latest) and gone three straight matches without a win. They have three home matches remaining and know that those will be crucial to their playoffs hopes – never mind dreams of a home final at Wanderers.

That leaves Pretoria Capitals and Durban’s Super Giants at the foot of the standings but in no way out of the race to the play-offs – as Sunrisers have already proven.

Capitals find themselves only one point outside the top four, have a positive nett run rate and can point to two rained out matches as reasons not to panic. At this stage, they must still be rueful of letting a win against DSG slip out of their grasp at Kingsmead but only have fixtures against the teams above them left so have their fate in their own hands still. Also, their batters are going relatively well, with Rahmanullah Gurbaz (138 runs), Will Jacks (115) and Kyle Verreynne (106) in the top 13 run scorers but the loss through injury of Anrich Nortje and Daryn Dupavillon have left their bowling stocks low – Senuran Muthusamy is their leading wicket-taker with five wickets.

DSG, on the other hand, has seen only Kane Williamson (107 runs) contribute significantly out of their star-studded line-up so that immediate improvement coach Lance Klusener will be after. The bowlers, however, have been coming to the party with Noor Ahmad (seven wickets), captain Keshav Maharaj (5), Chris Woakes (4) and Naveen-ul-Haq featuring prominently on the leading bowlers list.

With only six points to their name, results need to start coming quickly for Kingsmead’s favourites.

All told, the first half of the group stage has delivered some enthralling cricket with surprises, last over finishers, standout Rising Star performances and packed, vibrant stadiums. The gauntlet has been laid down for the next 15 matches …

Comments


Online Sports News

  • Facebook

Powered by Eclipse Productions

bottom of page