JSK and Sunrisers claim crucial opening victories on the road
The opening round of Betway SA20 Season 4 matches has seen all the visiting teams dominate.
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.
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-times 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.
At Centurion, a career-best showing from Duan Jansen spearheaded the Joburg Super Kings victory charge.
Jansen, who is the twin brother of Sunrisers’ Marco, claimed 4/23 to trigger a Capitals collapse that saw the home side slide from 71 without loss to 89/5. The Capitals were not able to stage a recovery with JSK restricting their hosts to 146/9.
JSK had earlier battled to 168/6 with veteran Rillee Rossouw (48) and Wiaan Mulder (43) showing their experience to piece together a 78-run partnership after Capitals seamers Tymal Mills and Codi Yusuf both struck in the Powerplay after extracting steep bounce off the Centurion surface.
The Centurion crowd had some consolation on the day with two consecutive one-handed catches on the grass banks. Tristan Wylie and Thiart le Roux now join Mekyle Maunder in the queue for the Betway Catch R2million competition.
