A nail-biting performance from MI Cape Town (MICT) fueled a powerful 76 run win over defending champions Sun Risers eastern cape. This fixture goes down as the most entertaining as MI Cape Town displayed quality form that maintained their dominance against the eastern cape side at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg.
Sunrisers Eastern Cape have been the Champions for the past 2 seasons and their form has raised an eyebrow as they found a way to stay in the tournament even after consecutive losses in the round robin stages of the tournament. SEC have been painted as the “slow killers” in this tournament, as a result of their very slow start.
Earlier, MI Cape Town won the toss and elected to bat first, thus posting a chase of 181 runs for 8 wickets in their innings, leaving SEC with a target of 182.
A powerful partnership between MI Cape Town A-listers, Ryan Rickelton and Rassie Van der Dussen set their innings on fire, giving us boundary after boundary and placing MICT in a formidable position in the powerplay. This performance marked as the highlight of the game until the first wicket of Ryan Rickleton that gave SEC hope. The MICT innings was nothing short of potency as they carried through in strong form whilst SEC was bagging wickets, in the hopes of an upper hand. At the end of their innings, MICT were entirely confident in their posted score and knew that defending this would be a walk in the park.
In the powerplay of the Eastern cape side, MICT managed a wicket that had SEC seemingly crumbling under pressure as the opposing side fielding attack held a stern hand. A slow start for SEC in their innings with a low run rate and questionable batting as minor errors began seeping through, thus resulting in heightened wickets taken by the MICT side.
After just 18.4 overs, SEC found themselves bowled out and at the feet of MICT.
Picture Credits: (MI Cape Town batters Ryan Rickelton and Rassie van der Dussen)
