Pretoria Capitals recovered remarkably from 7-5 to beat Joburg Super Kings by 21 runs in the SA20 on Saturday (January 17).
Pretoria Capitals go from 7 for 5 to register a 21-run win in SA20 2025-26
Joburg’s Daniel Worrall opened the floodgates, getting Shai Hope caught by Wiaan Mulder on the fourth ball of the Capitals’ innings. Bryce Parsons followed his opening partner into the dressing room the very next over, with six runs on the board, before Dewald Brevis, batting at No. 4, kept the third over out.
But Mulder, bowling his first over of the day, dismissed Connor Esterhuizen and Roston Chase on consecutive deliveries to reduce Pretoria to 6-4 before Andre Russell was dismissed for a three-ball duck by Worrall in the next over. After five overs, the scorecard read 7-5, with Sherfane Rutherford joining Brevis.
Match 28, Joburg Super Kings vs Pretoria Capitals
vs
- Ball by ball Over
At the end of the Powerplay, five Capitals batters were back in the hut with just 10 runs on the board - the lowest powerplay total in SA20 history. Rutherford and Brevis then went about resurrecting the innings, playing a rescue act for the ages to add 103 runs for the sixth wicket.
The duo stayed cautious at first, adding just 14 runs together in the next three overs before hitting 10 off the 10th and 19 off the 11th. Two more quiet overs followed, with just six runs coming off them, before Brevis hit Donovan Ferreira for two fours and as many maximums, eventually completing his fifty in 42 deliveries.
Rutherford hit a combined three fours and a six in overs 16th and 17th, and got to his half-century in 37 deliveries. Though he lost Brevis on the first delivery of the 18th, the West Indian southpaw went about his business, scoring 24 off his next 13 balls to take the Capitals to a respectable 144. Lizaad Williams and Keshav Maharaj then picked up three wickets apiece to restrict the Super Kings to 122-8 and help the Capitals return to the top of the SA20 2025-26 points table.
Notably, this was only the second instance of a team going on to win a T20 match after losing five of their batters for less than 10 runs. Baroda, in a 2010-11 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy match against Gujarat, were also reduced to 7-5 but Yusuf Pathan’s (89 off 42) heroics took them over the line. Moreover, this was just the fourth time in T20 history that a team won after four of their top-six batters were dismissed for a duck.
Image courtesy: SA20
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