Marco Jansen smashed an incredible 66 runs off just 27 deliveries to power Sunrisers Eastern Cape to an amazing come from behind two wicket win over Cape Town’s Mumbai Indians in the SA20 clash at Newlands in Cape Town on Saturday afternoon.
Chasing 172 to win, Sunrisers looked dead and buried after 15 overs, sitting on 105/6, with only bowling all-rounders Jansen and Brydon Carse (5) at the crease.
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Jansen then proceeded to decimate MI CT’s much vaunted bowling attack, smashing into all parts of the ground in an obvious innings that featured seven massive sixes and three fours.
The carnage began on MI captain CT Rashid Khan’s 16Th over, with Jansen pulling him four sixes, edging him for four, and then slog sweeping three more maximums in the over as 28 came from it.
At 17Th over from Kagiso Rabada went well with only four from the first four balls, but Jansen powered five times over mid-wicket for four and then flat batted six off the last as 14 came from it.
Rabada’s penultimate innings was also 14 as Jansen hit him for consecutive sixes, but the last ball of the over saw him dismissed, but the team needed just four runs from the final to win.
Sam Curran bowled and after Roelof van der Merwe (4no) hit two and one off the first two balls, point followed before Curran overstepped to hand the Sunrisers the win in somewhat anticlimactic fashion with no balls.
Earlier in the innings, most of the Sunrisers’ top and middle order started but failed to start with Adam Rossington (11), Sarel Erwee (19), Aiden Markram (12), Tristan Stubbs (28) and Jordan Cox (13) all falling for the men. -he was in a massive fight, before Jansen’s heroics.
Rollercoaster round
At the start of the game Sunrisers won the toss and elected to field, with MI CT scoring 171/6 in a rollercoaster of an innings.
Sisanda Magala claimed the early wicket of Dewald Brevis (6) caught by Jon-Jon Smits in the slip and should have been Grant Roelofsen in the same over, only for Smuts to shell him in nothing.
This allowed Roelfsen, 56 from 36 balls (7 × 4; 2 × 6), and Ryan Rickleton, 46 from 36 (4 × 4, 1 × 6) to start the impressive 102-run second wicket partnership that put them in. course for a massive score.
But Ottneil Baartman, 2/21, took two in the same over, while Van Der Merwe, 2/21, also got a double as MI CT collapsed to 123/6 in the 17th over.Th by.
That left Delano Potgieter, 21no dead 13 (1×4, 2×6) and Odean Smith, 25no dead 13 (3×4, 1×6) to power to a competitive total, which did not prove enough in the end.