After a week off, the SA20 returned with a bang as the bottom-placed Durban Super Giants defeated MI Cape Town in a nail-biting final over to pull within a point of them. Quinton de Kock, the captain, overcame a finger injury that prevented him from playing in the final one-day match against England to score 63 off 41 balls as Durban successfully chased down 165 with one ball remaining.
Durban made a good start after deciding to chase. Dewald Brevis scored a four and a six in the opening over before being trapped and missing an effort to hit the ground off Dwaine Pretorius’ bowling. Prior to it, though, Wiaan Mulder dismissed Grant Roelofson, the other opener, with a short ball that the batter smashed deep to square leg. Although they started off strong, MI Cape Town only had 44 players in the PowerPlay.
Rassie van der Dussen gained control when Reece Topley hit him for a pair of boundaries, but Durban’s spinners stopped the visitors’ momentum in the middle over. The slow-moving George Linde was stumped by Keshav Maharaj as MI Cape Town only scored 13 runs in the four overs following the PowerPlay. The tempo was soon lifted up again by Tim David and van der Dussen, with the former hitting two sixes off Maharaj and one-off Simon Harmer. But just as the innings started to pick up steam, both batsmen were out in quick succession. Delano Potgieter’s cameo and a 24-run final over were required to push Cape Town over the 160-point threshold.
With skipper de Kock striking five fours and two sixes in his first 22 balls, the Super Giants quickly recovered and sprinted to 55/1 after six overs. Because Jofra Archer and Sam Curran are both on England duty, his opponent Rashid Khan was not free to draw on their backgrounds. When Durban eliminated 86 runs off the mark in the first half of the chase with de Kock reaching 50 off 30 balls, it was clear that Cape Town’s ranks lacked potency.
After David defeated de Kock, the visitors came back in the second phase of the defense. Rashid Khan bowled two accurate overs to raise the score to 58 off of 36. However, George Linde was attacked by Keemo Paul (30 off 17), and Rashid himself also made a costly over, which significantly reduced the needed rate. Then, with the home team still needing to score six runs, Kagiso Rabada claimed three wickets, two of which came in the 17th over. Matthew Breetzke (48*), who struck a six off the penultimate ball from Marco Jansen after the first four balls from him had only produced three runs, helped Durban cross the finish line.
