Ken Borland

It’s been an SA20 campaign of some angst for the Pretoria Capitals and their new coach Jonathan Trott, but a change of captain and bringing in a handful of fresh players saw them ease to an assured bonus point victory over the Joburg Super Kings at Centurion on Tuesday night, which will provide a considerable confidence-boost as the playoffs loom.

The Capitals came into this crucial local derby having won just one of their previous seven matches, but two No-Results and a bonus point win meant they weren’t knocked out of contention just yet. But another victory was almost essential and they pulled it off in style, winning by six wickets with fully eight overs to spare.

The triumph was set up in the field after new skipper Kyle Verreynne won the toss and sent Joburg in to bat. The bowlers responded with a superb display of calm discipline – conceding just one leg-bye and one wide as extras epitomised that – and the Capitals were brilliant in the field.

The pressure saw the Super Kings restricted to just 99 for nine in their 20 overs, the lowest SA20 total ever at Centurion.

Two players making their SA20 debuts set the tone with the ball. Australian Thomas Rogers was excellent up front, taking one for 20 in his four overs, while Gideon Peters, from North-West via Border but born in Pretoria, caused great unease in the middle overs with his sheer pace and excellent control. He finished with two for 15 in his four overs, dismissing two of Joburg’s international stars in Devon Conway (9) and Moeen Ali (0). And Peters very much got them out – Conway couldn’t handle the heat from a short delivery and was caught behind, while Moeen was trapped lbw by a searing leg-stump yorker.

The batting line-up also has a fresh look with Will Smeed, Ashton Turner and Keagan Lion-Cachet all in the top six.

Regular captain Rilee Rossouw was unavailable on Tuesday because his wife had given birth in the morning, but Verreynne confirmed after the match that the change of captain will be in place until the end of the tournament.

“We wanted to freshen up the team with new guys and they’ve had an immediate impact. We’ve had five guys sitting on the side who are very hungry and we did really nicely in the field, just keeping it simple,” Verreynne said.

“I thought with both the ball and in the field we were exceptional and we were really ruthless, which is maybe what we have lacked up till now. We just kept putting pressure on the Super Kings and the way we played is very pleasing and important because we’ve spoken about getting momentum to take into the back stretch of the competition.”

The Pretoria Capitals are now just one point behind the fourth-placed Super Kings, with both franchises having two games remaining. The Joburgers host Paarl Royals and Durban Super Giants, while the Capitals play home and away against MI Cape Town, so it is going to be a tense finale to the round-robin stages.

Joburg Super Kings coach Stephen Fleming was upset by his team’s failure to exhibit much tenacity. After their poor batting display, they were scattergun with the ball and sloppy in the field, two catches going down. The most crucial was Marques Ackerman being missed on 0 by Lutho Sipamla at deep backward point when Pretoria were two down inside the first five overs. The left-hander went on to score 39 off 22 balls, which settled the contest in poised fashion.

“It was a really bad one, a poor performance. There’s been a bit of a trend this season that batting first seems a bit more challenging, but the players didn’t have the mindset to work their way out of a tough situation. We were sloppy with the bat, the ball and in the field, so 0/3 of our skills worked, which is a problem,” Fleming said.

“The Capitals were able to extract variable pace and bounce, but we contributed to our own demise, we should have posted 140 but we just gave up too easily. You need to adapt to conditions and get a score on the board, but the modern player doesn’t seem to have that toughness to find a way to do it. It’s mostly mental.”

With the Western Cape teams playing such inspired cricket at the moment, Fleming admitted that it will now take a miracle for the Joburg Super Kings to finish in the top two and earn themselves two chances of making the final.

“We’re probably out of the race for one and two, but there are three teams hunting hard for the other two playoff places. We have our last two games at home, where we are very comfortable. So that’s a positive, but we have to play better,” Fleming said.

The Pretoria Capitals, meanwhile, seem to have found some belated inspiration. The rousing fast bowling of Peters had much to do with that. The 25-year-old was born and schooled in Pretoria and represented the SA U19s in 2018. He played 28 matches for Northerns across all three formats, but for some reason left to play for Border in 2021.

Thankfully for a bowler of his potential, he has been playing for North-West in Division One for the last two seasons.

While Peters may not be known to many, Verreynne had a brief but memorable meeting with him before they became SA20 team-mates.

“I played against him in a T20 match for Western Province last season. The first ball I didn’t see and the second ball got me out. So I knew what he was about and obviously I’ve seen him a lot in training now. He’s a serious talent with the ability to bowl 150km/h-plus, and his ability to bowl at any stage of the innings impresses me. Plus his attitude and hunger is most pleasing,” Verreynne said.

Daryn Dupavillon called it “incredible” while the religious might even have said it was miraculous as Marques Ackerman’s last-ditch boundaries earned the Pretoria Capitals a bonus point win over the Sunrisers Eastern Cape on a pitch which had many batsmen praying for help in their SA20 match at Centurion on Tuesday.

Sunrisers needed all the help they could get as they lost the toss and were sent in to bat on a damp pitch, understandably so after all the rain that has fallen in Gauteng in the last month. Their confidence-lacking batting line-up did not help themselves either though, and they crashed to 26 for five.

It was only thanks to a determined but fiery 51 off 35 balls by Marco Jansen that they managed to post 113 all out, their second-lowest total ever and also the second-lowest at Centurion.

Will Jacks (27 off 23) gave Pretoria Capitals a confident start to their chase, but the loss of Kyle Verreynne (12) off the last ball of the powerplay saw them slip from 44 for one to 61 for four. Mindful of how they had messed up a run-a-ball chase in Kingsmead in their opening game, the home side went into crisis mode.

Liam Livingstone (14* off 14 balls) and Ackerman successfully completed their first job, which was to ensure victory was in the bag. But a crucial, and very attainable bonus point, seemed to have passed them by when they needed 32 runs off 18 balls for the bonus point.

They then went into attack mode but struggled to make much headway on the two-paced pitch against tight, determined bowling that still asked plenty of questions. They came to the 16^th over needing 15 from it for the bonus point.

Ackerman managed to swot Marco Jansen’s second delivery over long-on for a flat six, but two dot balls followed, meaning the left-hander needed to score nine off the last two balls for that crucial extra point.

First he flicked the left-arm quick off the stumps, behind square on the leg-side for four, before swinging the last ball clean-as-a-whistle over long-on for six. In just his second SA20 innings, and his first since 2023, Ackerman finished on a tenacious, highly impressive 39 not out off 30 balls.

“It was a tricky pitch, you couldn’t just walk in and start hitting, you had to spend some time getting the pace of the wicket. When we lost a few wickets, I was just thinking of us getting the win,” Dupavillon said after the victory by six wickets with 24 balls to spare.

“We played the situation badly in Durban, but Liam and Marques really did what was required today. They hit the ball on the ground initially and we were always ahead of the rate because of Will going hard at the front. But Marques was incredible at the end there.”

While SA20 matches at Centurion are usually a festival of runs, Tuesday was very different. At the start of the game, the ball was ‘sticking’ but there was still some steep bounce, as well as swing and a little bit of movement off the deck.

Dupavillon and new-ball partner Eathan Bosch used the conditions perfectly, with Dupavillion taking three for 32 and Bosch two for 18.

Bosch had Zak Crawley (1) caught at mid-off off the last delivery of the first over, unwisely trying to hit a back-of-a-length ball over the top. Dupavillon then struck with his second and third deliveries as David Bedingham (2) edged a nurdle outside off-stump and Aiden Markram jabbed his first ball to deep backward square-leg.

For a team that has lost their first two games, crashing to four for three was always going to be a very difficult hole to climb out of. Jansen’s excellent innings, featuring four fours and three sixes, meant they weren’t totally embarrassed, but Migael Pretorius (4-1-21-1), Jimmy Neesham (3.4-0-11-2) and Senuran Muthusamy (4-0-29-2) all provided fine support to the new-ball bowlers.

The back-to-back defending champions, having lost three matches in a row now, need to urgently arrest their slide otherwise they will be praying for a miracle of their own.

“We need to find our blueprint soon because we haven’t played well in our last three games. You need to make your own luck and we need to do the basics better. Fortunately there are still seven games to go and we know we are in for the long run.

“We haven’t started well before but have managed to find a way. But we are running out of time to make a play,” assistant coach Russell Domingo said.

The members of the Pride who put in an enormous amount of work to make the 2023/24 season such a success for the DP World Lions were rewarded at the glittering Lions Cricket Awards Dinner in Sandton on Saturday night, with Bjorn Fortuin emerging as the big winner.

The DP World Lions’ triumphant men’s T20 captain was named both the DP World Player of the Season and the McDonald’s Players’ Player of the Season.

The evergreen Kirstie Thomson won the DP World Player of the Season award for the DP World Lions women’s team, while highly-respected captain Kgomotso Rapoo was the McDonald’s Players’ Player of the Season. It was also a special evening for left-arm seamer Relebohile Mkhize, whose exciting talent was recognised with the McDonald’s Fans’ Player of the Season and BAS Newcomer of the Season crowns.

Exciting spinner Nqaba Peter also did the double of the McDonald’s Fans’ Player of the Season and BAS Newcomer of the Season awards for the DP World Lions men’s team.

Left-arm spinner Fortuin was in divine form throughout the season with the ball, taking 60 wickets across the three competitions. He was the leading wicket-taker in the CSA 4-Day Series, claiming 35 wickets at an average of 26.11 as he spearheaded the DP World Lions’ title-winning campaign. Fortuin also averaged 26 with the bat, including an unbeaten century against the Dolphins.

He bowled with exceptional control and guile in the white-ball competitions. Fortuin took 18 wickets (4^th best) and conceded just 5.85 runs-per-over (3^rd best) as the DP World Lions stormed to the T20 Challenge title, and he was also the team’s joint leading wicket-taker in the CSA 1-Day Cup, as well as being one of the most economical bowlers in the competition.

The 35-year-old Thomson put to bed any thoughts of impending retirement as she topped the DP World Lions’ batting averages in both the One-Day Cup and the T20 competition. She averaged 51.66 at a strike-rate of 90 in the 50-over tournament and 42.16 at a strike-rate of 117 in the T20s.

Mkhize was thrown into the deep end in her debut season and successfully crossed over from being a rookie to an integral part of the #PrideOfJozi. She was outstanding in the T20 Cup, taking eight wickets in eight matches, the most for the DP World Lions, and conceding just 3.93 runs-per-over. Mkhize also took seven wickets in four One-Day matches, with an economy rate of just 4.50.

There was a touch of the magical about Peter’s introduction to the DP World Lions family as well as he bowled himself into the Proteas team with a glorious T20 campaign. The 21-year-old leg-spinner claimed 20 wickets, the second-most in the competition, at an average of just 9.50 and he conceded only 5.84 runs-per-over.

Rapoo has successfully embedded herself as the undisputed leader of the Lions Ladies pride, having taken over the captaincy at the start of the season.

Her canny spin saw her take 13 One-Day Cup wickets, the top-five nationally, and she only conceded 3.72 runs-per-over. In the T20 competition, Rapoo took seven wickets and went for only 6.00 runs-per-over. The opposition could also never afford to underestimate her hard-hitting batting, as Rapoo averaged 25.25 in the 50-over competition.

Delano Potgieter entranced viewers of the CSA 4-Day Series final with his muscular batting that led the DP World Lions to a victory that defied belief, and he was named the Masana Most Improved Player of the Season for the men’s team.

Nonkululeko Thabethe won the equivalent Afripure Most Improved Player of the Season award for the women’s side for the very pleasing growth in her batting.

South African batting star Heinrich Klaasen hopes the impact sub rule used in the Indian Premier League never makes its way into international cricket, saying it negates the need for “smart batting”.

Klaasen steered the Proteas to victory in their opening T20 World Cup match in New York, a meagre target of 78 still requiring the batsmen to be at their sharpest on a treacherous pitch that saw the facilities at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium being criticised for producing a game that lacked entertainment value as the International Cricket Council seeks to reach new markets.

It was all a far cry from the recent IPL, in which strike-rates and totals reached all-time highs. Klaasen, the key finisher for Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL, had to play clever cricket against Sri Lanka on a pitch with inconsistent but often steep bounce, and plenty of seam movement, finishing with 19 not out off 22 balls.

It was the sort of match that would have been near-impossible in the IPL with the impact sub rule allowing teams to bolster their batting line-up while not weakening their bowling attack. Klaasen told SportsBoom that he would not like to see the international game adopt the gimmick.

“The impact sub rule allowed batsmen to play with much more freedom and the execution was at a different level on pitches that were good. In the IPL, you are measured by the number of sixes you hit and your strike-rate, that’s your bread-and-butter and no-one worries about your average,” Klaasen said.

“But I hope the impact sub does not come into international cricket. It frees up the batting side too much and you can have a batsman at number nine with it, so there’s no need for anyone to hang around.

“It takes away the creativity of batting, it takes away smart batting. Like when Jos Buttler scored a superb century off 60 balls for Rajasthan Royals against Kolkata Knight Riders to chase down 224, having scored just 25 off his first 18 deliveries. The impact sub will take away that sort of brilliance to sum up conditions and hang around a bit, against just bombing the ball over small boundaries.

“It will allow teams to not play the situation so well. We also don’t get a lot of difficult pitches in the IPL, which is why the way teams go extremely hard in the powerplay is the big trend, and then the middle-order adjusts depending on whether you’re in trouble or flying,” Klaasen said.

While South Africa started their T20 World Cup campaign in impressive fashion against Sri Lanka, Lady Luck has not always been on their side in ICC events and they are yet to win one of the main trophies. Klaasen says the number of players they have with experience in the high-pressure IPL arena has helped them perform better in recent World Cups.

“We’ve got off to a very good start which means we can relax a bit and just keep building on that confidence. We need to focus on what we do best and keep that intensity.

“But the Netherlands have beaten us twice and Bangladesh can beat any team on their day, so we need to play the big moments well in those games.

“We’ve matured and gelled nicely as a team and a lot of the guys have played in the IPL, where there is a lot of pressure and expectation. We have been playing good World Cup cricket lately. Of the last three World Cups, we’ve only had one bad one, the 2022 T20 in Australia when we didn’t play well.

“But in Abu Dhabi in the 2021 T20 we only lost one out of five matches but missed out on the semi-finals on nett run-rate, and last year in India in the ODI World Cup, we played some unbelievable cricket to reach the semi-finals,” Klaasen said.