Sunrisers Eastern Cape 149 for 3 (Breetzke 66, de Kock 56, Bosch 2-29) beat MI Cape Town 148 for 6 (Hendricks 70*, Linde 30, Green 3-29) by seven wickets
Despite SEC’s second wicket falling only at the start of the 18th over, and the target being a modest 149, the match saw a tense finish with SEC needing 40 off the last four. And despite losing the set de Kock, Breetzke and Jordan Hermann ensured a win for their team.
For SEC, Breetzke and de Kock fed off each other to maintain tempo and despite the asking rate ballooning towards the death, they had enough wickets in hand to complete the chase with a ball in hand. The win takes SEC two points clear at the top of the table, and even a win for Paarl Royals in the final league game will at best push SEC down to second, meaning they are assured of two shots at making the final. The defeat consigns defending champions MICT, who needed a bonus point win in Gqeberha to stay in contention for a top four finish, to a bottom-place finish.
A laboured powerplay for MICT
Hendricks then showed his intent by pulling a half-tracker through fine leg for four before Rassie van der Dussen started the fifth over with a six swept over square leg off another left-arm spinner, James Coles. Hendricks then lofted Senuran Muthusamy over long-off before finding two more boundaries to take MICT to 43 for 1 at the end of six overs.
In the next four overs, Hendricks put away a couple of short balls from Stubbs and Anrich Nortje but found little support from van der Dussen, who was bowled by Green for a 24-ball 21 at the halfway mark of the innings. The pressure only grew with Nicholas Pooran struggling and after 14 deliveries without a boundary, Pooran tried to take on Coles and only managed an inside edge onto his stumps.
Linde lends support
Linde took nine balls to settle before he launched Muthusamy back over his head in the 15th over. In the next over, he damaged Green’s otherwise pristine figures by hitting him for a hat-trick of sixes. He swatted a drag down wide of long-off, went after a wide one and hit it over extra cover and swung Green over the leg side when he bowled on the stumps.
One ball later, he tried to clear long-on but Stubbs caught the ball, threw it in the air before crossing the rope and grabbed it after jumping back into the field of play. MICT’s finisher Kieron Pollard was bowled around his legs by Jansen but Hendricks and Jason Smith provided the flourish as MICT hammered 29 runs off the final two overs.
Breetzke, de Kock and a two-paced chase
Kagiso Rabada struck with his second ball as Jonny Bairstow holed out to deep midwicket in the third over. Despite Breetzke hitting a few boundaries, SEC’s powerplay was worse than MICT’s – 37 for 1. Breetzke and de Kock rotated strike well with boundaries hard to come by. De Kock then hit Hendricks for two sixes before hitting Bosch for three fours in a 16-run over. He brought up his half-century in the 14th over. However, they managed just 13 runs off the next 17 deliveries and it left them needing to score at 10 an over for the last four.
Breetzke, who had not hit a boundary since the start of the seventh over, clicked into gear as he hit two boundaries off Trent Boult in a 15-run over. Even after Bosch had de Kock caught at deep cover, Breetzke didn’t let up, hitting another boundary square on the off side – a particularly productive region for him. Jordan Hermann then lofted Rabada over long-on and Breetzke uppercut the quick to bring the equation down to five off the last over, which SEC completed without fuss.
Abhimanyu Bose is a sub-editor with ESPNcricinfo