The Pretoria Capitals laid down an early marker in the Betway SA20 with a commanding all-round opening performance against the Sunrisers Eastern Cape at St George’s Park in Gqeberha.
It was another evening of high-quality entertainment with the St George’s Park band keeping a capacity crowd dancing in the stands despite two lightning and rain interruptions.
The Capitals dominated with both and ball with the visitors posting 193/6 before restricting the Sunrisers to 170/5 for a 23-run victory.
Phil Salt was the outstanding Capitals’ batter with a stunning 47-ball 77 before all-rounders Jimmy Neesham (37 off 28 balls) and captain Wayne Parnell (29 not out off nine balls) delivered the finishing touches to the innings.
The match started in frenetic fashion in the opening Powerplay. In between the weather interruptions the Capitals smanaged 57 runs but for the loss of three wickets.
The scalps of Will Jacks (6), Rilee Rossouw (4) and Theunis de Bruyn (19) were all shared equally among the three pacemen Marco Jansen, Sisanda Magala and Ottniel Baartman.
The Capitals slipped further into trouble when Sunrisers captain Aiden Markram struck with successive deliveries to remove Senuran Muthusamy (13) and Shane Dadswell (0) to leave the visitors in a spot of trouble at 80/5.
Unfortunately for the Sunrisers they were unable to capitalise on their position as Salt and Neesham rebuilt the innings before Parnell’s cameo.
The home team were never able to build any form of momentum in the run chase as they lost wickets at regular intervals due to the sheer pace of Anrich Nortje (2/18).
Veteran Jon-Jon Smuts played a lone hand with 66 at the top of the order, while Tristan Stubbs threatened with 23 off 11 balls but his team needed much more from him on the night.
Tom Abell kept the fight alive with a battling 40 not and James Fuller’s undefeated 27, but the Capitals just had too much firepower on the night.
