TimesofIndia.com in Johannesburg:
After 30 matches, with each team playing 10 each, we have our top-four of the SA20. MI Cape Town, Paarl Royals, Sunrisers Eastern Cape and Joburg Super Kings are heading to the playoffs of the third season of the South African T20 league.
Pretoria Capitals and Durban’s Super Giants had terrible campaigns — with just two wins — and will not be booking their flights to Port Elizabeth and/or Johannesburg for the playoffs.
In the first qualifier, MI Cape Town will face Paarl Royals and the victor will go through directly to the final. The losing team will face the winner of the Eliminator between Joburg Super Kings and Sunrisers Eastern Cape in the second qualifier.
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Before we look ahead to the playoffs, let’s look back at the four teams who are still alive.
MI Cape Town had occupied the bottom spot in both of the previous SA20 editions. This time, though, they finished top with seven wins and two defeats from the 10 matches (one was washed out). Much of the credit for their superb show this time goes to the opening pair of Rassie van der Dussen and Ryan Rickelton.
Despite being rested for their final league match, Van der Dussen tops the scoring charts with 330 runs at an average of 55 and a strike rate of 134.15. Rickelton has been equally impactful with 259 runs at an average of 51.80.
The coastal teams — MI Cape Town and Paarl Royals — have made the most of their home conditions. Newlands (home to the MI Cape Town) and Boland Park (home to the Paarl Royals) both witnessed unbeaten runs from the hosts – five played and five wins. Worryingly, perhaps, MI Cape Town and Paarl Royals picked two and three defeats, respectively, when on the road.
Like MI Cape Town, Royals’ charge, predominantly, has also been led by the two opening batters – Lhuan-dre Pretorius and Joe Root. The big challenge for the Royals now will be how they cope without Root who has travelled to India for the ODI series.
That leaves the onus on the 18-year-old Pretorius to add to his 323 runs at an average of 32.30, which has him in second place on the run-scoring list.
Now we move to the two-time defending champions Sunrisers Eastern Cape. At one stage, it looked like they would miss out on the playoffs having lost their first three matches. They brought themselves back into contention with four wins in a row only to finish with five wins and an equal number of defeats.
Unlike MICT and PR, SEC have found their surge from the bowling department. Marco Jansen is top of the wicket-takers chart with 15 scalps, while fellow seamer Richard Gleeson has picked 12 wickets.
Joburg Super Kings round up the playoff teams. Their four wins and five defeats was enough to keep them comfortable from the bottom two while keeping a sizable gap from the top two, resulting in a spot in the Eliminator.
With three of the four playoff matches to be played in and around Johannesburg, they would hope to make the most of the conditions and the home crowd to go all the way.
Donovan Ferreira has been the pick of the JSK players, scoring 163 runs at a strike rate of 155.24 while also taking eight wickets at an economy of 5.82.
All these stats and team streaks will count for little, though, when the playoffs begin on Tuesday (February 4) at Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth).
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