SA20 - 'Mid-season' Break
How the teams are shaping up heading into the playoffs.
At the start of the SA20 season, I decided that I would try to do content to accompany the league. That has not worked out well, the games have been coming thick and fast. So, I decided that maybe I should wait for the season to end before I did an overview of the season. Then this break happened and I also had to join this chat, and suddenly I had something to write about.
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MI Cape Town
The people at MI Cape Town had a plan: Dewald Brevis, Ryan Rickelton, Rassie van der Dussen, and Liam Livingstone. Three of those four batters catch fire quickly and van der Dussen is a top anchor with the ability to explode at the death. Combine this with a bowling lineup that has Kagiso Rabada, Rashid Khan, Sam Curran and Odean Smith, and MI Cape Town was the team to beat.
Growing up I read a lot of poetry. I owned a book with poems by Wordsworth, Shelly, Coleridge, Blake, Burns, Byron, Keats and other English greats. That book introduced me to Robert Burns’ To A Mouse and the famous line: the best-laid schemes of mice and men, go oft awry… The best-laid plans of mice and men often go astray. It encapsulates how things went for MI Cape Town. First, Livingstone pulled out. They had no one to fill that gap, so they were left with a Liam Livingstone-sized hole in their top 6.
To add to that, van der Dussen just failed to get going.
A lot of responsibility was hoisted onto the Brevis and Rickelton’s shoulders. In two of the three matches that they won, it was due to Brevis doing well. In the other one, van der Dussen played a long and patient knock.
Their much-vaunted bowling attack did not have many tricks up their sleeves. Sam Curran failed to replicate his T20 World Cup performances and Rashid Khan did not look like the Rashid Khan everyone knows, except for that one match against the Royals. Things just did not go according to plan for them.
One area that MI Cape Town has done well is in the middle overs. They have bossed that phase. Throughout the 'first half', their bowlers have taken 3.1 wickets in the middle overs, compared to the tournament average of 2.7. Their batters didn't just score more runs than the average, they also lost fewer wickets.
MI Cape Town brought in Tim David as a late replacement for Liam Livingstone, and this changes things for them. A lot. Coming into the break, there was a feeling that if van der Dussen gets his T20 groove back, MI Cape Town might still be a strong contender. With the addition of David to the team, that is now no longer a determining factor. David arrives just in time for the highveld leg of MI Cape Town’s campaign.
The ball flies in the highveld. David will enjoy himself.
There is a huge chance they might make it to the Wanderers on February 11.
Durban Super Giants
The Super Giants have been behaving rather oddly.
Wiaan Mulder has opened the batting for the Super Giants three times, batted at number three twice and came in at four twice. Matthew Breetzke has had two chances, opened once and came in at number three once. Quinton de Kock has opened the batting three times, come in at first drop three times and batted at five once. Kyle Meyers has opened the bowling and the batting.
The genius to this method is yet to be unlocked. So far, it just looks odd.
Despite having a few specialist batters (Quinton de Kock, Matthew Breetzke, Heinrich Klaasen and Christian Jonker) DSG chose to mostly field three specialist batters, two specialist bowlers and six all-rounders. The Proteas battle to find balance because they have not yet found a solid allrounder, well, DSG fails to find balance because of too many allrounders.
It has been difficult to understand what their plan is. The best way to describe them is that they are a bits-and-pieces team. And they have played like that. Bits-and-pieces players can whack the ball a distance, but, they are also easy to dismiss. They are fun to watch a lot of the time. They score a lot of runs very quickly, and they have lost many wickets doing so. On average, they have lost more wickets than the tournament average in all phases.
They have also struggled a bit with the ball. Their attack is not quite as incisive. They have taken fewer wickets in the PowerPlay, taken fewer wickets in the middle overs. Maybe the addition of David Willey might sharpen the attack somewhat.
The only role that I see DSG playing for the rest of the tournament is to be party-poopers. Soon, some teams’ prospects for a playoff play place will depend on whether DSG can upset one of the other five.
That aside, Meyers and Heinrich Klaasen have been phenomenal with the bat for them. The addition of Ben McDermott will ease the pressure on Klaasen to carry the team through the middle overs. It’s also been great seeing Mulder develop his batting. They are developing his ability more.
Joburg Super Kings
If Harry Brook had stayed, the Super Kings would probably have one of the best batting lineups in the tournament. But, Brook is not around, and they have been one of the worst. They have a 35.9-run average for their first-wicket partnership. That is much higher than the tournament average of 28.7.
However, that average is high because of Faf du Plessis’ incredible knock of 113 runs. He practically slung the entire team on his shoulders that day. In his 157-run partnership with Reeza Hendricks (45 from 46), du Plessis creamed 99 runs from 53 balls. Take that innings away, JSK’s openers have scored 4, 6, 25, 45, 0, and 14 as a pair and averaged 15.7 runs.
Reeza Hendricks is not playing as he was last year. Janneman Malan had a brief look in, got tied up by left-arm spinners and got benched. The result of these struggles is that JSK just has not enjoyed the PowerPlay overs. Three bad things have happened to them in the first six overs: they have lost more wickets than average, have taken fewer wickets than average and have conceded more runs than anyone else.
Donovan Ferreira is an exciting prospect. He can hit the ball long and hard. But, he has not been able to do his finishing job because there has been nothing to finish. In most matches, he has either come in with JSK in a tight spot, having lost too many wickets for too few runs or has come in with 12 or fewer balls to face. He has had little opportunity to play his trademark innings. On the bright side, this should help him to develop his all-round game at this level.
Gerald Coetzee has been outstanding with the ball. He is fifth on the wicket-takers list. Coetzee has taken 11 wickets in five matches at an economy of 7.5 runs an over. But, he has not had much support from his fellow pacers. No other JSK pacer features in the top 20. Alzhari Joseph just hasn’t taken many wickets. Neither has Romario Shepherd.
Despite their struggles, JSK looks good for a playoff spot. Three home games after the break will not do harm to their push for a top-four finish.
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Sunrisers Eastern Cape
The Sunrisers' top order did not start well. They didn't score runs. When they did, they did it slowly. Both their first-wicket partnerships and PowerPlay scores are lower than the tournament average. But, they have made up for that in the middle and at the death.
One thing about them, the Sunrisers are exciting. They don't have huge names in their lineup, besides Aiden Markram. What they lack in big names in international cricket, the Sunrisers make up with top local talent. Sisanda Magala has a knack for taking wickets at important junctures and Ottniel Baartman has the third-best strike rate in the league, the second-best strike rate among pacers.
Tristan Stubbs and Marco Jansen made their international debuts in 2022. Jordan Hermann, one of my favourite youngsters, is very talented and might have an international career soon. They all play with the exuberance of youth. Roelof van der Merwe and Jon-Jon Smuts temper that youthfulness with experience. Aiden Markram's captaincy is also interesting to witness.
Back to the cricket. The Sunrisers did not start well. They lost back-to-back matches to the Capitals. But, since then they have been going along well. They survived a couple of scares too.
The Sunrisers have taken 1.8 wickets in the PowerPlay, slightly better than the tournament average. While their top order has had struggles, they lost fewer wickets than the tournament average. Their bowling has, while it has quietly gone about business, done really well. They have conceded fewer runs in the middle and death overs. They have also taken more wickets, 3.4 vs 2.7.
This is a team to look out for.
Paarl Royals
Experience. The Royals are stacked with experience. Between the four of them Jos Buttler, David Miller, Jason Roy and Eoin Morgan have scored 33 856 T20 runs. Dane Vilas also has a wealth of experience. Tabraiz Shamsi and Lungi Ngidi have 391 T20 wickets between them. They are a dependable team, you know what to expect from them.
What most people did not expect was Bjorn Fortuin dominating. The Royals have bossed the PowerPlay with the ball, in large part, thanks to Fortuin taking the new ball. Of Fortuin’s 13 wickets, 10 have come on the PowerPlay. So, it’s no surprise that in the PowerPlay, the Royals have taken more wickets than average and have conceded fewer runs than everyone else.
However, they have not done as well in the middle overs. They have scored fewer runs than the average and conceded more than the average. They have taken more wickets than average in the middle overs, though. They also uncovered another gem in Evan Jones. His medium pacers have been fantastic. Quite a feat for a player who only changed from spin bowling recently. The Royals have also conceded fewer runs at the death.
The Royals have kept faith in Jason Roy, despite his struggles throughout the tournament. They keep hoping that he will have one of his incredible knocks. But, while they hope, they are not scoring runs at a healthy rate. This could change when they play in the highveld, given the firepower they possess in their batting.
Pretoria Capitals
Ferisco Adams bowled a slowish bouncer that was going down to the leg side. Rilee Rossouw helped it along, and it raced past the fielder at fine leg for a boundary. The next delivery was a gentle medium pacer directed at Rossouw's body. Rossouw smashed it through the vacant midwicket region for another boundary. Just before Adams got into his delivery stride on the next delivery, Rossouw did a little jig. An attempt to unsettle Adams. It didn't work. Rossouw missed the ball as it careened onto the stumps. Just like that, his innings was over. Rossouw walked off with a smile on his face.
When I think of Pretoria Capitals, this scene is what comes to mind. Those three consecutive balls. I don’t know what happens in their dressing room, but, by the look of things, these guys are having fun. Batters are free to express themselves, and as a result, they have outgunned everyone. They are probably the most attacking team in the tournament.
The by-product of that is that they have lost more wickets than average in the PowerPlay. But that hasn’t been a big problem for them because they have outscored everyone in the PowerPlay. They have also scored more than the average in the middle overs and death overs.
The Capitals have three bowlers on the top 10 wicket-takers list: Anrich Nortje, Eathan Bosch and Wayne Parnell. No other team has as many in the top 10. Adil Rashid is also close by. He is in 11th place. Though their bowlers have taken fewer wickets than average in the PowerPlay, they have been particularly good in the middle overs. They have taken the second-most wickets and conceded less than average runs in that phase. They have also done a decent job in containing opposition batters at the death, compared with the rest of the league.
The tournament’s runaway leaders are operating like a well-oiled machine.
Another great article, thank you. Not sure what going on with the Durban Super Giants, maybe Klusener is trying to be to clever?