Click here for attendance figure for the SA20 final between PC and SEC on February 12 2023
Click here for attendance number for MICT vs Pretoria Capitals at Newlands on January 23 (nearly 14 000 crowd)
An official crowd of 11,115 was present for the first ever SA20 match- South Africa’s new T20 league, with MI Cape Town beating the Paarl Royals by eight wickets at Newlands.
MICT captain Rashid Khan won the toss and put Paarl in, but the men from Boland struggled and only managed 142/7 in their 20 overs. Jos Buttler top scored with 51 and David Miller made 42, but there wasn’t much from the rest. Jofra Archer was the pick of the bowlers with figures of 3/27 in his four overs, including the crucial strike of Miller towards the end.
Paarl were also made to rue an easy dropped catch from Dane Vilas in the very first over of MICT’s chase- it gave Ryan Rickleton a life, and the southpaw didn’t need a second invitation as Dewald Brevis and he put on 90 for the first wicket to effectively put the game beyond Paarl’s reach.
Brevis finished on 70 off 41, with his five sixes enabling MI CT to get a bonus point as they finished off the chase in 15.3 overs. There’ll be more tough challenges for the youngster- Paarl sans Lungi Ngidi didn’t really have a threatening attack (no real pace or bounce), but this knock will only increase the calls for him to be fast tracked to the Proteas squad.