Ken Borland

If Saturday’s SA20 final at the Wanderers is like the wedding feast to celebrate the successful conclusion of the third edition of the tournament that has changed South African cricket, then Thursday night was a wonderful bachelor party for the Sunrisers Eastern Cape as they romped to an eight-wicket win over the Paarl Royals in Qualifier 2 at Centurion.

The comfortable victory, with four balls to spare, puts Sunrisers into their third successive final and the two-time champions will be taking on MI Cape Town in a mouthwatering final clash.

It was 23-year-old Jordan Hermann who took the Eastern Cape side to their target of 176 with his marvellous 69 not out off 48 balls. But it was another left-hander who set up the victory, Tony de Zorzi opening the batting and stroking a beautiful 78 off just 49 deliveries, with 11 fours and two sixes. His play through the off-side was particularly elegant and he reminded everyone what a serious player he is.

Kwena Maphaka snatched up the wicket of David Bedingham (9) for Paarl Royals in the fourth over, but De Zorzi and Hermann then feasted, adding 111 off 73 deliveries for the second wicket.

Jordan Hermann’s older brother Rubin was also involved in a wonderful second-wicket partnership for the Royals, adding 99 off 65 balls with Lhuan-dre Pretorius, whose time in the limelight will surely come.

Rubin Hermann was also unbeaten, scoring 81 not out off 53 deliveries to take Paarl to a competitive 175 for four in their 20 overs, after electing to bat first. Opener Pretorius batted with great maturity, scoring 59 off 41 balls, to show he is ready for bigger things.

They ensured that the Royals started well, while Hermann and Andile Phehlukwayo (22* off 11) provided the big finish they needed. But it was in the middle overs that they faltered, as the admirable Sunrisers attack gobbled up three wickets in four overs, Paarl slipping from 105 for one in the 13^th to 126 for four after 16 overs.

The key breakthroughs were by English paceman Craig Overton, who had Pretorius caught behind, and captain Aiden Markram, who trapped opposite number David Miller lbw, missing a sweep, for just 6. They both ended with excellent figures of one for 24 in four overs.

The Paarl Royals were the form team in the competition, being the first to qualify for the playoffs, but Sunrisers Eastern Cape have been able to supplant them with a trademark surge in the final week.

“The Sunrisers always seem to be slow starters, but the most important thing is that they catch up in the end,” Miller said after another playoffs disappointment for the Royals. “Once you develop a winning squad like they have, then there’s a lot of trust and they really back each other.

“They are clever and gutsy cricketers, they never say die and that goes a long way in T20. They give everything in the field, they have amazing bowlers, especially the three-metre guys with height and pace in these conditions, and the batsmen have stepped up at certain stages when needed,” Miller graciously said.

De Zorzi thanked Markram for his backing, but in truth the 27-year-old deserves credit for his tenacity in smashing down the door once it was left ajar.

“I’m really grateful for the chance and to Aiden for showing faith in me, even though it’s not really warranted in this format. I haven’t played that many T20 games and you need to play more to find your rhythm and blueprint. Sometimes you have doubts, but I am still relatively young and I need to keep believing. I was glad to do it tonight because it gives me hope and this is an unforgiving format,” De Zorzi said.

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.

The cricket season just past has seen Wiaan Mulder freed from his cell of self-imposed pressure and doubt, and the Central Gauteng Lions all-rounder’s reward has been a return to the Proteas T20 squad, albeit for the warm-up series against the West Indies in Jamaica at the end of this month and not the World Cup.

The Lions were the outstanding domestic team of the summer, winning both the four-day competition and the CSA T20 Challenge that ended last weekend in a final at the Wanderers, with the Gautengers easing past the KZN Dolphins by seven wickets with 14 balls to spare.

Mulder was at the forefront of that successful chase, blazing his way to a ferocious 55 not out off just 26 balls, with four sixes. It capped a superb tournament for the 26-year-old, who scored 248 runs at an average of 35.42 and a strike-rate of 139.32. Mulder also took 11 wickets and conceded just 7.10 runs-per-over, making him the only player to appear in the top-20 of both the batting and bowling averages.

It followed his destructive performances in the SA20 league, where he scored 297 runs at an average of 37.13 and a strike-rate of 157.14 for Durban Super Giants.

In the Lions’ triumphant four-day campaign, Mulder was their leading run-scorer with 549 at 54.90, which included a couple of centuries. He also claimed 16 wickets at an average of 26.50.

Little wonder then that the Proteas have come calling again. He played in the ODI series against India last December, but Mulder is set to play his first T20 international since September 2021 in Sri Lanka.

But in a candid interview before his selection was announced this week, Mulder admitted that he had not made the most of his previous Proteas call-ups.

“The biggest thing for me at international level is mental. I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself, which is made worse when you think every game could be my last,” Mulder said after the Lions’ T20 triumph.

“I do my best when I am just given the freedom to go out and play; unfortunately I’m an over-thinker and then I try too hard and get a bit down on myself. I’ve done relatively well with the ball for the Proteas, but I haven’t really shown what I can do with the bat. But maybe my time will come in the next couple of years,” Mulder said.

The all-rounder’s mantle is a tough one to bear in South African cricket because we have been blessed with arguably the greatest of them all – Jacques Kallis – as well as a succession of legends who could both win matches with the bat and double as a proper fast bowler: Mike Procter, Clive Rice, Kallis, Lance Klusener and Shaun Pollock have spoilt us.

Mulder does not bowl express pace, but he is a very handy practitioner who can fulfil a variety of roles. The St Stithians product says the presence of another great – Allan Donald – on the Lions coaching staff has helped him enormously in terms of growing his skills and even becoming a little quicker.

“Allan Donald has been massive for us and for me personally. I’ve been working with him to get more energy behind the ball, being able to bowl back-of-the-hand deliveries. It’s difficult bowling in the powerplay at the Wanderers, the ball really flies here, so I’ve had to up-skill a lot.

“I feel like I’m bowling well and it’s nice to be consistently bowling. Not bowling five matches in a row in the SA20 gets a little frustrating,” Mulder said.

The up-skilling Mulder has done on his batting will also hopefully pay off at international level.

“Russell Domingo [head coach] said there were certain things that have to get better in our game and there was an expectation to up-skill. There was a lot of hard work in the transition period after he became coach.

“And you could see when Reeza Hendricks and I were batting together in the final, we made sure the required rate never ran away from us even though we weren’t hitting boundaries. We were getting the ones and twos and making sure there were no dot-balls,” Mulder said.

You can’t buy the sort of composure and experience that wins big games of cricket and DP World Lions coach Russell Domingo is confident that our star players will stand up and lead the way for the #PrideOfJozi when they host Sunday’s CSA T20 Challenge final against the HollywoodBets Dolphins.

Our DP World Lions breezed through their semi-final against derby rivals the Titans with a performance of great calm and quality, and Domingo expects the same mental strength to be on show against the Dolphins.

Proteas stars Rassie van der Dussen and Temba Bavuma were at the crease at the end steering our Pride to victory with the bat, with another international, Ryan Rickelton, setting the tone up front with his innings. Throw in the strong contributions through the tournament made by Wiaan Mulder, Bjorn Fortuin and Reeza Hendricks, and it is easy to see that the DP World Lions environment is a brilliant one, making it easy for youngsters like Nqaba Peter, Lutho Sipamla and Codi Yusuf to shine as well.

“It was a really good performance against the Titans,” Domingo agrees. “Semi-finals are often nerve-wracking, they can be harder to handle than the final itself. But we kept calm and composed.

“There is always a lot of expectation on us because we topped the log and we have a very good side, and in T20 cricket anything is possible. It was a really solid performance in the semi-final, but we cannot rest on our laurels.

“Rassie is scoring runs where it counts, he showed really good intensity against the Titans, and Temba is also playing well, I can see a big score just around the corner for him. You want your big names to perform in the big games and we will have to be close to our best to beat the Dolphins.

“But the big names are the guys who know under pressure that you don’t have to play 100% perfect cricket, you just need to play solid, do the basics really well, and stay calm and disciplined,” Domingo said.

The KwaZulu-Natal Coastal visitors will be bringing a team with experienced and canny campaigners of their own, and a powerful bowling attack, even without T20 ace Ottneil Baartman, who has joined Delhi Capitals in the IPL.

“They have a formidable pace attack with Okuhle Cele, Daryn Dupavillon and Andile Phehlukwayo, and a quality spinner in Prenelan Subrayen. They are also a very street-smart side, they know what it takes to win. Jason Smith, Khaya Zondo and Jon-Jon Smuts are also a key trio of very experienced players,” Domingo said.

But our Pride are playing at home at the DP World Wanderers Stadium and have only lost two of their eight matches there this campaign. And they beat the Dolphins there at the start of the month in their round-robin match, Yusuf and Rickelton leading them to victory by seven wickets with four balls to spare in a rain-shortened match.

Rickelton, Van der Dussen and Hendricks all feature in the top-12 of the tournament averages and have consistently given the DP World Lions solid starts. Delano Potgieter and Evan Jones are the six-hitters at the end of the innings and it is all brought together by Mulder, who is also in the top-20 of the averages and strikes at 126.97.

Leg-spinner Peter has been the outstanding bowler of the competition with 19 wickets in only nine matches, and has bowled with such potency that he averages just 7.78 and has twice taken four wickets in an innings, and also with such control that he has only conceded 5.19 runs-per-over.

Mulder has also been tight and effective with the ball, and that has allowed tremendous flexibility in terms of bowling options. Sipamla, Jones, Yusuf and Fortuin have served as a wonderful bowling unit, taking 55 wickets between them. Seamers Sipamla, Jones and Yusuf are all conceding little more than 7.5 runs-per-over, while Fortuin is the second-most economical bowler in the competition, at 5.84.

Our DP World Lions have quality through their line-up and their strengths cover whatever conditions or match situations are thrown at them. They are primed to peak under the pressure of Sunday’s final.