Ken Borland

Reeza Hendricks will not be based at his beloved DP World Wanderers Stadium for the SA20 tournament that starts on January 9, but that’s not to say the Lions star is not looking forward to the event.

Hendricks has been an ever-present in the Joburg Super Kings line-up in the first two seasons of the SA20, but was released this year. That was not the setback it seemed, however, as the 35-year-old fetched the highest bid at the auction for the 2025 edition, netting R4.3 million from MI Cape Town.

He will be joining fellow DP World Lions stars Kagiso Rabada, Connor Esterhuizen, Ryan Rickelton, Rassie van der Dussen and Delano Potgieter at MI Cape Town. And Hashim Amla, the vastly-respected batting coach for the Central Gautengers, is also with the Newlands-based T20 franchise.

It’s not for nothing that there is such a concentration of #ThePrideOfJozi that has been signed by head coach Robin Peterson. The DP World Lions are the back-to-back domestic T20 champions and Hendricks has starred in both winning campaigns.

In 2023/24, he was the third-highest run-scorer with 440 at 36.66 and a strike-rate of 140.12, with four half-centuries. In this season’s triumph, he was again in the top-10 run-scorers with 194 at 38.80 and a strike-rate of 135.66, with two fifties.

Given that he has been starring on the domestic T20 stage since 2010/11, it is not a surprise that Hendricks this season broke former Knights team-mate Morne van Wyk’s record for the most domestic T20 career runs.

Van Wyk held the record with 3183 runs in 113 innings, averaging 31.83 at a strike-rate of 124. Hendricks went past that tally in the final against the Titans and has scored 3184 runs at an average of 36.18 and a strike-rate of 125.35.

And it’s not just the DP World Lions that Hendricks has been shining for: He has been one of the premier T20  batsmen in international T20 cricket, scoring 1222 runs for the Proteas in the last three years, at an average of 33.94 and a strike-rate of 141.92.

“I’ve had a good run, although I had a bit of a slump in the World Cup. But I made a few runs since then and hopefully I’m close to my best again and the runs keep coming. A little slump like that is not uncommon in your career, but hopefully I’m out of it now,” Hendricks said.

“It’s a part of the game and you just need to accept it and move on. Conditions were quite challenging at the World Cup and it wasn’t anything to do with technique. It was just a time I had to go through, although it continued longer than I would have liked.

“It’s nice to win trophies and be the highest run-scorer ever in the competition. Milestones are a part of it, it’s quite an achievement to have most runs ever, but a winning team and culture is more important.

“The record tells you that I’ve been around for a while and I just try to keep my batting as simple as possible, I formulate plans that work for me. Hopefully they continue to work going forward.”

Even a move away from the DP World Wanderers Stadium for the SA20 is okay with the typically phlegmatic Hendricks.

“I still feel good and I will keep playing for as long as I can, as long as I still have the desire, the passion is still there and I’m still scoring runs. I just try and keep my standards and keep building on my game. I like to think my game is still evolving and now I have a new coach to work with [Peterson] in January,” he said.

The DP World Lions are well-represented throughout the SA20 with 13 players in all taking part in the six-team franchise competition. The other Western Cape side, the Paarl Royals, also have a clutch of #ThePrideOfJozi with Nqaba Peter, Mitchell van Buuren, Codi Yusuf, Bjorn Fortuin and Kwena Maphaka chosen for Trevor Penney’s side.

All-rounders Wiaan Mulder and Evan Jones will turn out for the Durban Super Giants and Joburg Super Kings respectively.

T20 franchise cricket has changed the life of more than one cricketer and the IPL, who held their mega auction at the start of the week, has done that more than most. But Betway SA20 Commissioner Graeme Smith wants South Africa’s franchise T20 tournament to do that and revitalise the game in the country he captained with such distinction.

The Indian Premier League is obviously the benchmark all other leagues aspire to, and their auction saw record prices being paid for the next tournament being held from March 14 next year, with the 10 franchises spending more than £60 million overall.

Smith wants the SA20 to continue growing in stature such that it is considered to be part of the top group of T20 tournaments, and the fact that so many South Africans and overseas players who feature in the SA20 are being picked up by the IPL as well, bodes well for the stature of the January/February competition.

Proteas stars Heinrich Klaasen, Marco Jansen (the most expensive overseas player), Quinton de Kock, Anrich Nortje, Kagiso Rabada, Gerald Coetzee, David Miller, Aiden Markram, Faf du Plessis and Lungi Ngidi have all been signed up by the IPL, as well as lesser-known players like Lizaad Williams, Kwena Maphaka, Matthew Breetzke, Donovan Ferreira, Ryan Rickelton and Tristan Stubbs, who have shone in the SA20 and thereby attracted the attention of the Indian franchise owners who all have teams in the IPL too.

Amongst the highest-paid overseas stars who were bought at the IPL auction are players like Josh Buttler, Jofra Archer, Moeen Ali, Noor Ahmad and Rashid Khan, who have all featured regularly in the SA20.

“From an SA20 perspective, it’s lovely to see the platform provided by our tournament to these players and there are a significant number of South African players in the top money-earners list,” Smith told sportsboom.com in an exclusive interview at the Wanderers in Johannesburg on Monday.

“Last year we produced the most players going to the IPL of all the overseas countries, and that shows the growth of our franchise cricket. And that includes a few youngsters, those are the good stories of people’s lives being changed, like Kwena Maphaka going to Rajasthan Royals for £142 000.

“So the exposure from the SA20 is very important but we also hope that the tournament keeps the Proteas strong. They haven’t had a great period in T20 cricket since making the World Cup final, but the IPL auction and the SA20 tournament show that there is still some incredible talent there.

“There is a lot of franchise cricket played around the world and we want to elevate SA20 so that it is one of the No.1 picks. There is like a Tier One of these T20 franchise tournaments and we certainly want to be up there. I think we are establishing ourselves as one of the Tier One events.

“The feedback from the overseas players has been incredible. They love coming to South Africa because of the crowds, they say the tournament is well-run and, most importantly, they say it provides extremely competitive cricket. Two years into the event, there is much higher confidence that we can pull it off and we hope it just keeps developing,” Smith said.

Smith has high hopes that the SA20 will also keep developing South African domestic talent into world-beating international stars. Never mind being able to get them on the phone, the likes of Tristan Luus, an SA U19 all-rounder, can sit in the Mumbai Indians changeroom and chat face-to-face with Ben Stokes about the game. Likewise, Breetzke, who has just set off on his international career, will be chewing the ear off of fellow top-order batsman Kane Williamson in the Durban Super Giants locker-room.

“With our rookie draft and our introduction of the SA20 Schools competition, we’re going to expose a lot of youngsters. Plus the franchises are unbelievable when it comes to their attention to their pipeline and talent. They bring great expertise in terms of the support staff.

“Maybe before SA20, our players were not developing in the right way, they were becoming fully professional late in the day and you were still trying to educate them at national team level. But playing against the best shows you where you need to improve and what it takes to play at that level. They can sit and chat with a Ben Stokes or a Kane Williamson, and you’ll have international physios telling them that these are the levels they need to reach physically,” Smith said.

The bottom line is always commercial, however, and the SA20 continues to be the second-biggest money-spinner for CSA after the Proteas men. That has enabled things like the SA20 Schools competition, an annual camp for U19 girls and an umpire exchange with The Hundred in England, to be introduced.

There was more good news for the SA20 on the commercial front on Monday as they announced a new partnership with DP World, the global smart logistics and supply chain company.

In the old days, many metres of newsprint would have been used to try and answer the question of why the Joburg Super Kings, despite finishing in the top four of all four editions of the SA20, have not yet been able to proceed to the final.

These days, the post-mortems will mostly be done in digital form, computer codes leading to text on some kind of screen.

The Joburg Super Kings’ 2026 campaign came to an end at SuperSport Park on Thursday night as they were well beaten by 36 runs by the Paarl Royals in the SA20 Eliminator. Once again they had fallen short and coach Stephen Fleming, at the helm for all four tournaments, admitted to an “empty feeling”.

Having won the toss and sent Paarl Royals in to bat, but allowing them to post a fine total of 210 for five, and then slumping to 103 for six in reply, it is not that difficult to pinpoint where this season’s push for the final was derailed.

Especially when one considers the Super Kings went into their last fixture without their regular captain, Faf du Plessis, and experienced stars like Rilee Rossouw, Reece Topley and Donovan Ferreira. Injuries and the comings-and-goings of players meant 17 different people took the field for them during the season, so they never really became a settled outfit.

“We’ve had players down, and experienced ones at that, which meant there were guys who had to play at a level they have never been at before and it was asking a lot of them to rise to the challenge. They didn’t respond tonight, but I’m proud of the way they stepped up in Paarl to get into the playoffs,” Fleming said after the loss.

Even though they conceded 210 for five, Joburg Super Kings were by no means out of the contest at the midway point.

It was a fine effort by Paarl Royals, but a curious innings because even though such a big score in a knockout match is always daunting, one felt the Boland side had left a few runs on the table.

Lhuan-dre Pretorius was the top-scorer with a commanding 51 off 34 balls, but he did not seem to have hit top gear yet, seemingly setting his stall to bat deep, when he ran himself out (helped by an excellent piece of out-fielding by Matthew de Villiers) in the 11^th over.

There were four other very useful contributions in the Paarl innings: Kyle Verreynne lashed 30 off 15 balls at the start to ensure they had a brilliant powerplay, scoring 61 for one in the first six overs; Dan Lawrence kept the momentum going and had set up a big finish with his 36 off 23 deliveries; and Sikandar Raza (35 off 19) and Asa Tribe (30 not out off 16 balls) provided the big finish with 62 runs scored off the last five overs.

But when the SuperSport Park pitch is as true and well-paced as it was on Thursday, no total is safe if a batter gets in, stays in and goes deep; if one of the Super Kings could score a quickfire 80 and the rest bat around him, then 211 was certainly not out of reach.

But the brilliant Royals attack, led by Hardus Viljoen (4-0-24-3), gobbled up four wickets in the powerplay and some patrons had not yet finished their dinner when the result became fait accompli with the dismissal of Dian Forrester for just three leaving JSK on 103 for six after 13 overs, needing 108 runs off the last seven overs.

Wiaan Mulder deserves credit for showing plenty of fight as he stuck around for three-quarters of an hour to score 41 off 27 balls, while tailenders Duan Jansen (18* off 12) and Nandre Burger (17* off 11) helped themselves to 36 unbeaten runs off the last 23 deliveries.

But shorn of too many inspirational players, there was to be no miracle for Joburg Super Kings.

A quickfire half-century from Sherfane Rutherford and the express pace of Gideon Peters sent the Pretoria Capitals surging to the top of the SA20 standings on Monday night with their bonus point victory over a subdued MI Cape Town at SuperSport Park.

The in-form Rutherford struck a pugnacious but classy 53 off just 27 balls to lift Pretoria Capitals to 185 for six after they had been sent in to bat, providing a fabulous late boost to an innings that was restrained in a first 15 overs in which they could only score 101 for four.

Peters then took three wickets in his first two overs, prompting a dramatic collapse that saw MI Cape Town lose four wickets for nine runs between the powerplay and the halfway mark of their innings. MI Cape Town eventually limped to 132 for seven, losing by 53 runs.

Reeza Hendricks scored 68 not out off 50 deliveries, but he struggled to bat with any freedom, his first 30 runs coming off 35 balls before a late flurry saw him collect four sixes which really were too little too late.

The rest of the MI Cape Town batsmen did not cover themselves in glory either. Openers Rassie van der Dussen (15) and Ryan Rickelton (7) both fell to boundary catches inside the powerplay, while Nicholas Pooran lashed 17 off five deliveries and then promptly cut Andre Russell straight to short third man.

Corbin Bosch (2), Karim Janat (0) and George Linde (0) proved to be a very fragile middle-order, and even the big-hitting Jason Smith could only score 13 off 17 balls as he and Hendricks meandered to a 34-run partnership between the 10^th and 15^th overs.

On paper, the team from the Western Cape should be playing beautiful T20 cricket; the defending champions boast the most successful opening pair in SA20 history in Van der Dussen and Rickelton, and Pooran, Linde and Smith are feared boundary-hitters. A bowling attack of Boult, Rabada, Bosch, Rashid and Linde is a coach’s dream for T20 cricket.

But MI Cape Town have been as fragile as the delicate Disa orchids that are the emblem of the Western Cape, showing none of the resilience this summer of the Proteas which that area is also famous for. They are now at the bottom of the log, five points behind the Paarl Royals in the fourth and final playoff place, with the Boland team having two games in hand.

Their highly-rated bowling attack was also disassembled by the Capitals, as their poor death bowling once again reared its ugly head.

Rutherford and Dewald Brevis (34 off 19) lashed 84 runs off the last five overs to give the home side an above-par total on a tricky pitch for batting. It was a two-paced surface with variable bounce and all bowlers needed was basic discipline in sticking to lines and lengths to make life hard for the batsmen.

That’s where Peters excelled as he took three for 32, brilliantly supported by Lungi Ngidi (4-0-29-1), Lizaad Williams (4-0-27-1), Russell (4-0-20-1) and spinner Keshav Maharaj (4-0-19-1).

“We just tried to do the basics better tonight. Sometimes you just try to do so much as batters that you get bowled out inside 20 overs or as bowlers you get whacked around. I was just trying to hit the top of off-stump,” Peters said.

The Pretoria Capitals certainly gave the defending champions an education in how to play on pitches with a bit of spice, keeping resources in hand for a late surge but also ensuring the platform was laid with positive intent.