By Patrick Compton.
Quinton de Kock’s half-century laid the foundation for his team’s convincing victory over Paarl Royals. Picture: SA20.
Durban’s Super Giants, led by player of the match Quinton de Kock’s superb unbeaten 83 in 51 balls, soared to the top of the Betway SA20 table as they crushed the Paarl Royals by 57 runs at Boland Park in Paarl on Friday night.
The visitors gained a bonus point for their lopsided win with a clinical all-round performance, their best of the season, in which the Paarl Royals were royally relieved of their unbeaten home record.
The Super Giants now go one point clear at the top with a superior net run-rate to their nearest rivals.
The result goes some way to ensuring that DSG will feature in the top four for the playoffs, and will certainly intensify interest in their next match against the same opponents in Durban on Sunday.
The Royals faced a challenging 191 for victory after DSG had won the toss and opted to bat first.
After the early loss of Tony de Zorzi and Matthew Breetzke in the power play, De Kock and Jon-Jon Smuts (52) added 118 in 83 balls for the third wicket – the highest partnership at the ground this season – and Heinrich Klaasen then belted an unbeaten 30 in just nine balls as the visitors poured on the pressure.
The Royals needed a lightning start from their English openers, Jason Roy and Jos Buttler to give themselves a chance of victory.
The pair got off to a fast start, striking 34 off 21 balls, but then Smuts, in his only over, sneaked a delivery between bat and pad to dismiss Roy for 12.
Buttler continued to play aggressively and the Royals initially kept pace with the required run-rate, albeit at the expense of losing wickets regularly as Wihan Lubbe and David Miller mistimed strokes to be caught in the outfield as the pressure ramped up.
Miller, in fact, failed to score off wrist-spinner Noor Ahmad’s first five balls of the ninth over before holing out to Wiaan Mulder at long-on to give the Afghanistan tweaker a rare wicket-maiden in the format.
Buttler, of course, was the prize catch for the visitors and he was the fourth wicket to fall, superbly caught low in the covers by Mulder – his third fine catch of the innings – off the bowling of Keshav Maharaj.
The match as a contest was now effectively over and the only question was whether the Royals could reach 153 to avoid dropping a bonus point.
But DSG refused to relax their grip and the home team could only reach 133 all out in 19.3 overs.
It was a fine all-round performance from DSG’s attack with Marcus Stoinis (3-24) taking his second three-for in succession, well supported by Maharaj (2-24) and Reece Topley (2-27) as well as the other spinners, Noor Ahmad and Smuts.
Earlier, De Kock, who has struggled for form in this year’s competition, slammed five fours and five sixes in his outstanding innings on a ground where he usually fails to flourish. The left-hander, who was moved down the order to No 4 after a succession of failures, added 118 in 83 balls with Jon-Jon Smuts for the third wicket, a match-winning alliance.
When Smuts (52 in 39 balls, 7x4s, 1×6) was smartly caught on the boundary by Mitchell van Buuren – who was outstanding in his work as a boundary rider – Klaasen then arrived to provide an explosive finish to the innings, clobbering an unbeaten 30 off just nine deliveries, to lead Durban’s Super Giants to their challenging total.
Klaasen gave the excellent crowd at Boland Park a grandstand finish, hitting Lungi Ngidi for a four and three consecutive sixes in a 24-run final over.
The visitors’ total was all the more impressive as the Paarl pitch is low and slow, with the home team’s bowlers expert at taking the pace off the ball and making quick scoring difficult.
But De Kock and Smuts played themselves in and were strategic in their stroke-making as they gradually built the foundation for the innings.
In the end their partnership was the biggest at the ground in the competition.
The wickets were shared between Bjorn Fortuin (1-32), Ngidi (1-46) and Obed McCoy (1-39).
Fortuin, who is usually very effective at Boland Park, and Tabraiz Shamsi (0-30) had relatively quiet outings.
Paarl Royals: Jos Buttler (wk), Jason Roy, Wihan Lubbe, David Miller (capt), Mitchell van Buuren, Fabian Allen, Andile Phehlukwayo, Bjorn Fortuin, Lungi Ngidi, Tabraiz Shamsi, Obed McCoy
Durban’s Super Giants: Matthew Breetzke, Tony de Zorzi, Quinton de Kock (wk), JJ Smuts, Heinrich Klaasen, Marcus Stoinis, Wiaan Mulder, Keshav Maharaj (capt), Reece Topley, Noor Ahmad, Naveen-ul-Haq.