The Pretoria Capitals hosted the Paarl Royals at SuperSport Park on Saturday and faced an 8-wicket defeat.
The wicket looked quite flat with the Capitals winning the toss and electing to bat first (Paarl Royals captain David Miller said that he would have opted to bowl first).
I was fortunate enough to be in attendance at the game. The entire day, from fan engagement to music played by the DJ and the MC, was first class. I have never seen SuperSport Park that full in my lifetime and whilst the Capitals were unfortunately on the losing side; the entire event was outstanding.
My personal favourites were seeing fans play the Bongos and Dance on the “Bongos” and “Dance Cams” respectively. It was also really nice to see young fans getting excited about the players with many children under the age of 10 regularly being heard screaming, “Miller” or “Malinga”.
The Capitals’ innings commenced with Gurbaz and Jacks opening. After hitting Ngidi for two fours, Jacks unfortunately got out to a short-pitched ball from Eshan Malinga. Gurbaz and Smeed managed to rebuild the innings with Gurbaz regularly finding the boundary before getting out to a ball that turned away from Mujeeb.
Kyle Verreyne continued on his good form by hitting 45 runs off 23 balls where he hit two fours and four sixes before getting out LBW off the bowling of Galiem. Although Roussouw started well by hitting a magnificent straight drive for six, he unfortunately fell for 14 runs off 9 balls. New Zealand all-rounder James Neesham managed to end off the innings with a superb 28 off 13 balls leaving the Royals 213 runs to chase off their 20 overs.
Notable performances from the Royals bowlers in the first innings were Dayyaan Galiem (who got 2 wickets for 41 runs off his 4 overs) and Mujeeb Ur Rahman (who got 2 wickets for 28 runs off his 4 overs).
The Royals got off to the worst possible start in their chase when the in-form Lhuan-dre Pretorius got out caught and bowled off the bowling of Will Jacks.
Rubin Hermann joined Joe Root at the wicket and the pair put on a match-winning partnership that ultimately took the game away from the Capitals. Hermann scored a magnificent 56 off 33 balls where he hit 5 fours and three sixes. He was impressive all around the wicket and was unlucky when he succumbed to a magnificent diving catch by Marques Ackerman off Neesham’s bowling.
Miller came in at four and scored 48 runs off 24 balls (not out) hitting four fours and two sixes. Root continued his innings by playing magnificent drives and pull shots which led to him carrying his bat and scoring 92 runs off 60 balls hitting 11 fours and two sixes. The Royals would go on to win the match by 8 wickets with two balls left.
Although the wicket got flatter as the match progressed, I felt that the Capitals could have bowled a bit better. Bowlers such as Eathan Bosch bowled 3 overs and went for 27 runs whilst Muthusammy only bowled 2 overs and went for 26.
Tiaan van Vuuren also went for 51 runs off his 4 overs with no wickets being taken. There could have been more variations incorporated, but, I did feel that the Capitals could have been more ruthless in changing the field positions (particularly after Pretorius got out) so that the Capitals could have possibly got another quick wicket.
Having said that, I was really impressed by the standard of cricket at hand and I look forward to going back to Centurion in the next few weeks to watch my next match.
Photo: SportzPics
