JSK and Sunrisers claim crucial opening victories on the road

After Durban’s Super Giants cracked MI Cape Town’s Newlands fortress in the opening game on Friday evening, both Joburg Super Kings and Sunrisers Eastern Cape won on the road at Centurion and Paarl respectively in Saturday’s double-header.

JSK made history when they beat the Pretoria Capitals away for the first time by 22 runs before the Sunrisers bowled out the Royals for just 49 - the lowest ever score in the history of Betway SA20 - to claim a bonus point 137-run victory.

Duan Jansen delivered a career-best T20 performance to drive Joburg Super Kings to a historic victory over Pretoria Capitals in the second match of Betway SA20 Season 4 on Saturday.

It was the Super Kings’ first victory at their Highveld rivals' home ground Centurion in four seasons.

The match was dominated by the ball with Player of the Match, Jansen who ran through the Pretoria Capitals middle-order with figures of 4/23.

The Capitals were well-placed to chase down Joburg Super Kings 168/6 after a 71-run opening stand between Will Smeed (34 off 30 balls) and Bryce Parsons (41 off 30 balls).

They moved comfortably to 86/2 in the 12th over but it was this juncture that the Super Kings roared back into the contest when Janco Smit (1/37) silenced the Centurion crowd when the young seam bowler spoiled Dewald Brevis’ homecoming.

It was the start of a slide that saw the Capitals lose five wickets for just 28 runs with Jansen being the chief destroyer. Jansen had already picked up West Indian Shai Hope in his first spell before returning to pick up the crucial scalp of Bryce Parsons (41 off 30 balls).

The lanky left-arm seamer gained further success when he clean bowled both Connor Esterhuizen and Daniel Smith to bring the Capitals’ resistance to a close.

The four Player of the Match candidates were Jansen, Tymal Mills, Wiaan Mulder and Parsons with Jansen winning 83.2% of the fan vote.

The Capitals had earlier won the toss and elected to bowl first under sunny skies at Centurion, with new English import Mills making an immediate impression when he struck Joburg Super Kings captain Faf du Plessis with a rising delivery on the wrist.

It set the tone for the Capitals with the Super Kings losing both openers Du Plessis and Matt de Villiers with just 16 runs on the board before the experienced Rilee Rossouw (48 off 33 balls) and Mulder (43 off 28 balls) rebuilt the innings with a 78-run partnership off only 54 balls for the third wicket.

Although Mills returned to the attack to remove Rossouw, the Super Kings had put themselves into a strong position that set up Akeal Hosein (22 not out off 10 balls) and Dian Forrester (10 not out off seven balls) to push the visitors up to an unbeatable total.

"We were happy with how we started the games today and this ground is usually a high scoring venue. As a team we were quite comfortable that we could chase the score that the Joburg Super Kings posed – it was very frustrating that we were unable to chase it. With that being said, I am very confident with the team that we have assembled – it is unfortunate and frustrating that we were unable to win today.

"We have another chance to compete again in the next few days. I am sure we can bounce back from this loss. It is the nature of T20 game, no time to dwell on bad days or bad games. We dust ourselves, debrief and move on to the next one," said Pretoria Capitals fast bowler Mills, who bowled 15 dot balls in the JSK innings.

The Capitals travel to Eastern Cape next where they will square off against the two-time champions EC Sunrisers on Monday at 5.30pm.

It was also the first time the Sunrisers have triumphed in their opening game of the season.

The battle of the Hermann brothers at Boland Park was comfortably won by Sunrisers' Jordan, who struck a delightful 62 not out off just 28 balls (5x4, 4x6) to power the two-time champions to 186/4.

The left-hander bookended the Sunrisers’ innings by taking 22 runs off Delano Potgieter’s final over.

It was the perfect ending after Quinton de Kock (42 off 24 balls) and Jonny Bairstow (31 off 33 balls) had provided the momentum upfront with a 66-run stand off only 50 balls.

The momentum was maintained by Matthew Breetzke (31 off 28 balls) and Hermann, who added a further 73 off 42 balls for the fourth wicket before the blitz at the death.

The Royals chase never got out of the starting blocks with the Sunrisers’ pacemen Marco Jansen (1/15), Adam Milne (2/17

) and Anrich Nortje (4/13) wreaking havoc in the Powerplay to reduce the home team to 30/4.

Nortje, in particular, worked up a good head of steam in his Betway SA20 comeback after “The Uitenhage Express” missed the last two seasons due to injury.

There was no way back from there for the Royals, who will have to regroup quickly ahead of the rematch against the Sunrisers at St George’s Park on New Year's Eve.