Producing a dominant all-round performance, Pretoria Capitals shone with bat and ball on Friday night, racing to an emphatic eight-wicket victory over Durban’s Super Giants as they extended their lead at the top of the SA20 standings.
With the visitors chasing just 81 runs for victory at Kingsmead, Kyle Mayers avenged his own duck in the team’s innings when he opened batsman Phil Salt caught behind Heinrich Klaasen with the first ball of the Pretoria innings.
A match-winning partnership
The Super Giants’ bowling attack failed to make further inroads, however, as Will Jacks and Theunis de Bruyn combined in a match-winning 78-run stand for the second wicket.
Jacks hammered 56 runs off just 25 balls, including five fours and six sixes at a strike rate of 224.00, and although he was removed in the seventh over, he did enough to do it home.
De Bruyn was unbeaten on 21, with the Capitals on 84/2 as they completed a convincing victory in just over 12 overs.
Earlier, the hosts had never won after winning the toss and electing to bat.
Capitals captain Wayne Parnell struck early, removing Mayers with the first delivery of the innings before Wiaan Mulder was trapped leg-before for just five runs in the third over.
Batters are limited
The rest of the top order of Super Giants tried to start the recovery, but they were also limited, with only the form of Klaasen (31 from 24 balls) scoring more than 20 runs.
And after Klaasen was dismissed by spin bowler Adil Rashad, the home side’s last four wickets fell to just 14 runs as they lost in the 19th over with a compiled total of 80.
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Senuran Muthusamy was Pretoria’s best bowler, taking figures of 3/12 from four overs to secure the Man-of-the-Match award.
While the Capitals moved clear at the top of the table in the inaugural SA20 league, securing their fourth win in five games to open a six-point gap on second-placed Sunrisers Eastern Cape, the Super Giants continued to struggle in second-last place after being handed their third defeat of the competition.