An excellent crowd of 22,010 was in attendance at the Wanderers in Johannesburg for the first ever SA20 final. Sunrisers Eastern Cape emerged champions, beating group stage winners Pretoria Capitals by four wickets at the Bullring.
The Capitals welcomed back regular skipper Wayne Parnell from injury, with the left-arm pacer replacing Senuran Muthusamy in their XI for the final. Sunrisers EC were unchanged, and opted to bowl first after skipper Aiden Markram won the toss in Joburg.
Pretoria got off to a good start (they were 64/2 in the 7th over) but struggled in the middle phase against the spin of Roelof van der Merwe and Markram, with the duo taking five wickets between them for just 48 runs in eight overs. They never quite recovered from that, and could only muster 135.
Adam Rossington ended any slim hopes the Capitals might have had of making a match of this as his 20-ball half century got SEC off to a cracking start- they were 76/1 after the end of the first powerplay as he took Eathan Bosch and Migael Pretorius to the cleaners. PC got back into the game thanks to Adil Rashid and Anrich Nortje but simply had too few to defend on what was a decent wicket, and Marco Jansen fittingly hit the winning runs with a six off Jimmy Neesham in the 17th over.
SA 20 Final Awards
SA20 Final Man of the Match: Roelof van der Merwe (SEC)
SA20 Best Bowler of the Tournament 2023: Roelof van der Merwe (SEC)
SA20 Emerging Player of the Season 2023: Eathan Bosch (PC)
SA20 Batsman of the Tournament 2023: Jos Buttler (Paarl Royals)
First ever SA20 Player of the Tournament 2023: Aiden Markram (SEC)