Capitals beat Royals to face them again in semis, Super Kings meet Sunrisers

07 February 2023 - 21:57 By Stuart Hess at SuperSport Park
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Jos Buttler of Paarl Royals hits the boundary during the Betway SA20 match against Pretoria Capitals at SuperSport Park on February 7 2023.
Jos Buttler of Paarl Royals hits the boundary during the Betway SA20 match against Pretoria Capitals at SuperSport Park on February 7 2023.
Image: SA20/Sportzpics/Gallo Images)

Jos Buttler kept his cool, the Durban Super Giants no doubt lost theirs and the Pretoria Capitals must now hope their lax effort in the latter stages in the field doesn’t come back to bite them in the semifinal they must play at the Wanderers on Wednesday.

For it is Buttler and the Paarl Royals who the Capitals will face in that playoff match and they did a lot to help them get there. The Super Giants, who crushed the Capitals by 151 runs last Sunday, will be understandably furious at the outcome.

The calculators were out for Tuesday night’s game at SuperSport Park from the moment David Miller chose to bat second. The Royals knew they needed to finish within 63 runs of the Capitals total to secure their playoff spot.

The Capitals, of course, blasted 226/5 with Kusal Mendis’ 41-ball 80 setting the perfect foundation. The Royals had lengthened their batting order and chose just five front-line bowlers, and with Evan Jones struggling in his first three overs they were constantly under pressure.

However, they knew it would come down to how well they managed the chase and for large parts of their innings they didn’t.

When Miller was out in the 14th over they still needed 62 runs off 38 balls to get their ‘winning’ target of 163 and Buttler at that point was struggling.

Then came the first bit of fortune; Buttler was narrowly missed at mid-off by the Capitals’ stand-in skipper, Theunis de Bruyn, one of those catches where the angle of the camera does the TV official no favours. Buttler seemed liberated thereafter, whereupon the second moment of good fortune came his way when De Bruyn inexplicably passed the ball to Colin Ingram to deliver his part-time leg-spinners, with the Royals needing 46 runs to get to 163 off the remaining 24 balls.

“WTF”, tweeted Jonty Rhodes the Super Giants’ assistant coach, followed a short while later by “Ingram????)”.

That over went for 18 with Buttler hitting two sixes and a four. The equation now manageable, Buttler, having seen off the superb Anrich Nortjé’s final over, then hit Neesham for a six and two fours and got himself dismissed in the same over.

It took a sublime straight drive from Bjorn Fortuin and a farcical set of four byes that saw the ball go between Capitals wicketkeeper Phil Salt’s legs to see the Royals get across the line and claim that last semifinal spot.

Miller wasn’t in the best of moods afterwards, which is understandable given the way his team played throughout. They may feel they can’t play that badly again on Wednesday, while the Capitals will feel that despite winning by 59 runs, they got some tactics wrong in the field.

Or maybe they are quite happy to avoid the Super Giants who scored 254 against them on Sunday.

In the other semifinal, which will be played at SuperSport Park on Thursday, the Joburg Super Kings, who finished in second place, will face the Sunrisers Eastern Cape. Faf du Plessis’s side won both league matches against the Sunrisers, the most recent occurring at the Wanderers on Sunday by a comfortable 24 runs.

Both semifinals have reserve days.  The final will take place at the Wanderers on Saturday evening.   


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