Player of the match Potgieter has recorded his career-best figures of 5/10.
MI Cape Town got their Betway SA20 Season 3 off to a perfect start with a commanding 97-run bonus-point victory over defending champions Sunrisers Eastern Cape in the competition opener at a sold-out St George’s Park on Thursday.
The Orange Army came out in their thousands to welcome home the back-to-back champions, but went back home disappointed as MICT delivered an inspired performance.
Robin Peterson’s MICT outfit dominated all facets on the night with Dewald Brevis smashing 57 off just 29 balls (2×4; 6×6) to lift the visitors to 174/7 before Delano Potgieter and Trent Boult combined to dismiss the Sunrisers for just 77.
Potgieter claimed the dreamlike career-best figures of 5/10, but it was the New Zealand international Boult (2/16) that set the tone with a superb new-ball spell that yielded a double-wicket maiden third over.
The 35-year-old showed his world class ability to swing the new ball back into the right-hander, which accounted for Sunrisers’ England Test opener Zak Crawley.
Boult showed that he will be a major addition not only to the MICT squad, but also a wonderful asset to the League in its entirety with his high skill certainly set to be an attraction at all the venues around the country.
It was the first time that MICT had beaten the Sunrisers Eastern Cape in five attempts since the inception of Betway SA20.
And it was only fitting that Brevis played a major role in the victory with the Rising Star delivering on his potential that was first seen in the competition opener at Newlands two seasons ago.
The 21-year-old was in rousing form striking the ball cleanly from the outset. His first task was to take on the dual spin of Simon Harmer and Liam Dawson before launching successive straight sixes off seamer Beyers Swanepoel.
One of Brevis’ half dozen sixes was caught one-handed in the crowd by Christopher Moolman, who became the first entrant into the Betway Catch R2 million competition for Season 3.
Although MICT lost Brevis heading into the final five overs, the momentum was maintained by Potgieter (25 not out, 12 balls) and George Linde (23 not out, 17 balls) with an unbroken 41-run partnership.
The pair took 24 runs off Sunrisers’ Marco Jansen’s final over which swung the momentum in MICT’s favour which they never relinquished for the remainder of the evening.
MICT will hope to maintain their winning momentum when they face Joburg Super Kings at the Wanderers on Saturday, while Sunrisers will look to bounce back against Paarl Royals at Boland Park also on Saturday.
miss fix it
Cricket became an Olympic sport in 1896. However, no matches were held because there was an insufficient number of teams who attended. Had the sport been played that year, cricket would have earned the distinction of being the only team sport to be played at the time. The first Olympic match in the next Olympics (1900) was participated in by the men’s teams. Great Britain (represented by the Devon and Somerset Wanderers) won gold.
Hobo Samurai
Sport Trivia: Which was the first Olympic Games in which Ghana competed as an independent nation? Answer: Rome 1960 – Having competed in Helsinki in 1952 as Gold Coast, Ghana did not send a team to the 1956 Games in Melbourne. By the time the 1960 Games came around, the country had achieved full independence from Great Britain, (in 1957) and was officially known as Ghana.