Over the course of 34 matches, there will be a fair amount of garbage served up in the SA20, with Thursday night’s affair between the Joburg Super Kings and Paarl Royals at the Bullring fit for tossing into a bin. A floodlight failure and the lightning near the ground (detected within 20km of the venue via a meteorological app) added one layer to a messy night and eventually ended the contest. Then there was the cricket, which lacked quality across all three disciplines and affected players on both teams.
The outcome did nothing for the teams’ standing – the Super Kings stay second and the Royals third. Only two-thirds of the stands were filled and many left after the home team’s innings, when there was no cricket. They’d probably grown tired of the bingo, and being told by a loquacious ground announcer that “the vibes were great”, or that “they needed to get the party started”.
It may not have been pretty, but the powerplay was certainly effective for Joburg Super Kings#BetwaySA20#JSKvPR#WelcomeToIncrediblepic.twitter.com/a4GlcgMwxp The SA20, despite all the hoopla around it remains a cricket competition and when there is no cricket, the whole thing falls flat and no amount of gaslighting from a stadium announcer will change that. There was some good here. Sikander Raza, who has had to manage his own bereavement following the death of his 13 year old brother two weeks ago, breached Faf du Plessis’ defences with a lovely off-break that spun through the gap left between bat and pad by the Super Kings captain.
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Nineteen year old Nqobeni Mokoena, a breakout performer in the competition’s fourth season, showed excellent resolve after taking a battering from Du Plessis during the power play, to deceive the Super Kings top scorer James Vince with a slower ball. But such moments were fleeting. Paarl’s bowling lacked consistency, and lines often weren’t located providing a stream of freebies for the home team.
However only Vince, and during the power play Du Plessis, were able to take advantage for an extended period of time. James Vince – putting the art in the art of batting 🏏#BetwaySA20#JSKvPR#WelcomeToIncrediblepic.twitter.com/a9Lg0MRLrO With almost 900 T20 matches between them, it’s unlikely the pair would have produced such unattractive batting very often. There were ugly hoicks across the line, Du Plessis got an outside edge to third man for four, and numerous instances of the ball not finding the middle of the bat occurred.
Vince faced 43 balls for his 75, but decides Du Plessis’ 39 and Matthew de Villiers’ 30, the Super Kings couldn’t build on a solid start finishing with 187/6 – having stitched together 64 runs in the power play. There were some dreadful dismissals; Wiaan Mulder and Donovan Ferreira top edged while slogging and Shubham Ranjane attempted a single after hitting the ball straight back to the bowler and was run out.
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