In the opening game of the SA20 2025, Delano Potgieter’s five wickets haul handed a victory for MI Cape Town against the defending champions Sunrisers Eastern Cape at Gqeberha.
The much anticipated third season of the SA20 league was scheduled to be played between 9 January and 8 February. The opening match was played between the defending champions Sunrisers Eastern Cape and MI Cape Town at Gqeberha.
In the season’s opener, MI Cape Town’s Delano Potgieter outplayed the defending champions with his impressive bowling spell and clinched a 97 runs difference victory for his team.
Apart from scoring an unbeaten 25 runs off 12 deliveries in the first inning, Delano Potgieter bagged his first five wickets haul of the season in the second innings at an economy of 3.30.
Potgieter bowled three overs and bagged five wickets while spilling just 10 runs. For his extraordinary bowling performance, Delano was awarded the Player of the Match title.
During the post-match presentation, Delano Potgieter said “I don’t know what to say. It was lovely. I guess I’ll just take it as it comes, it was lovely. This is the first time I’ve bowled for MICT in three seasons. I just tried to keep it simple to be honest. Just tried to hit the top of the stumps, and it was working tonight. Only came in the 18th over so I did everything I could to take the score up (with the bat)”.
Speaking of the match, Sunrisers Eastern Cape won the toss and opted to bowl first where van der Dussen and Reeza Hendricks opened the inning for MI. Marco Jansen struck earlier and dismissed Reeza for three ball duck while the followed batter Connor Esterhuizen by Gleeson was dismissed for 22 runs.
Soon van der Dussen was also sent to the Pavillion by Liam Dawson after scoring 16 runs, MI Cape Town was down to three before reaching the 50 runs mark. Dewald Brevis and Ingram made a 67 runs stand and helped MI to reach three-digit mark.
While things were seen favouring the MI, Beyers Swanepoel broke the partnership by dismissing Ingram for 22. Following his dismissal, Dewald Brevis too lost his wicket to Marco Jansen after securing the half-century.
Delano Potgieter’s quick-fire 25 runs lead MI Cape Town to score 174 runs after losing seven wickets in the allotted 20 overs.
On the other hand, Sunrisers Eastern Cape failed to lay a strong foundation as Boult bagged back-to-back wickets in the final two deliveries of the third over.
The defending champions struggled to face the aggressive bowling attack of Rashid Khan and Co and managed to score just 77 runs after losing all their 10 wickets in 15 overs.
Delano Potgieter bagged his maiden five-wicket haul of the SA20 league while Trent Boult bagged a couple of wickets with Azmatullah Omarzai and George Linde bagging a wicket each. With the victory, MI Cape Town moved to the top of the SA20 2025 points table.
