Royals cruise to comfortable SA20 win over Capitals

The Paarl Royals cruised to a comfortable 27-run win over the Pretoria Capitals in their SA20 match at Boland Park in Paarl on Friday night.

The Royals batted first, managing a decent 160/7 on a tricky surface before a superb all-round bowling effort, led by their legion of spinners, throttling the Capitals as they ended well short on 133/7.

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The Capitals innings never really got going as they lost regular wickets throughout which stymied their attempts to kick on.

Phil Salt, 39 off 31 balls (3×4, 2×6) batted well at the top of the order but Will Jacks (5) popped a return catch to bowler Lungi Ngidi and Theunis de Bruyn (5) edged Obed McCoy to keeper Jos Buttler leaving them on 39/2 in the fifth over.

Rilee Rossouw, 29 off 18 (1×4, 2×6), then combined with Salt to double the total in a 30-ball stand before Rossouw was stunningly caught by a running and leaping Mitchell van Buuren in the deep off the bowling of Andile Phehlukwayo with the score 78/3 in the 10^th over.

Salt followed in the next, trapped LBW by Tabraiz Shamsi as they slipped to 84/4 and his wicket ended any chance they had as the rest of the batters struggled to hit the boundary including Jimmy Neesham, 21 off 18 (3×4), and Eathan Bosch (16no off 19) as they couldn’t get close.

Phehlukwayo with 2/29 was the pick of the Royals bowlers while four other bowlers managed to pick up a scalp.

Decent start

At the start of the match Capitals won the toss and chose to bowl first, with the Royals innings getting off to a decent start as Jason Roy, 23 off 16 (3×4, 1×6) and Buttler (14) shared 42 for the first wicket within the first five overs.

The Capitals however fought back as Neesham made the breakthrough bowling Roy, Daryn Dupavillon had Buttler caught by Colin Ingram and Wihan Lubbe (11) was caught by Senuran Muthusamy off the bowling of Jacks as they slipped to 56/3 in the ninth over.

Captain David Miller, 41 off 33 (4×4) and Van Buuren, 28 off 21 (1×4, 1×6) fought back for the Royals as they shared in a 61-run fourth wicket stand off 44 balls to get them back on track.

They started slowly before picking the rate up as they took their side over the hundred run mark before Van Buuren was caught by Muthusamy off the bowling of Eathan Bosch with the score 117/4.

Regular wickets fell over the rest of the innings, including Miller bowled by Corbin Bosch, while Phehlukwayo, 28no off 14 (4×4, 1×6) produced a late innings cameo to get his side to a defendable score.

Dupavillon was the pick of the Capital bowlers with 2/29 while he was backed up well by Corbin Bosch who claimed 2/35.