Cricket
MI Cape Town keeps playoff hopes alive in SA20─── ILSE SMALBERGER 09:46 Sat, 17 Jan 2026
MI Cape Town (MICT) have revived their SA20 playoff chances with a three-wicket victory over Sunrisers Eastern Cape (SEC) at Newlands on Friday evening (16/1).
The defending champions collected four valuable points to lift them to 14 points with their all-important final round-robin fixture against Sunrisers at St George’s Park on Sunday remaining.
The Sunrisers won the toss and chose to bat first. Quinton de Kock lost his wicket with the first ball of the match, with Jonny Bairstow (15 off 10), Matthew Breetzke (16 off 20) and Jordan Hermann (12 off 18) not quite getting the ball rolling for the visitors.
James Coles (28 off 27) looked set to score some valuable runs, but was bowled by Trent Boult in the 17th over. Marco Jansen (42 off 23) was the most successful with the bat for SEC, scoring four sixes and three boundaries pushing SEC to a total of 139/9 in their 20 overs.
Sunrisers
Jansen took his batting form straight into the MI Cape Town innings with the left-armer removing both Rassie van der Dussen (8 off 12) and the in-form Ryan Rickelton (11 off 12) in the Powerplay to provide Sunrisers with the start they would have been hoping for.
But Reeza Hendricks (41 off 43 balls) dug his heels in to play the anchor role to ensure that despite MI Cape Town continuing to lose wickets, they would inch closer to the required total.
Reeza Hendricks. Photo: Facebook MICT
Allrounder George Linde struck a breezy 31 off 18 balls and new import Kieron Pollard contributed 20 off 14, but still Sunrisers stayed in their fight. It became tricky towards the end when Hendricks was dismissed off the final ball of the penultimate over, caught at deep cover off Anrich Nortje, leaving MI Cape Town requiring four runs off the final over.
For MI Cape Town and the Newlands faithful, Sunrisers allrounder Senuran Muthusamy (2/25) over-stepped to offer up Bosch a free hit to close out the game and keep the champions alive in the competition.
With four matches remaining before the Qualifiers, Paarl Royals top the SA20 table 24, with SEC in second place also on 24 points. Pretoria Capitals is third on the table with 20 points, followed by Joburg Super Kings on 17 points. MI Cape Town and Durban’s Super Giants are fifth and sixth respectively, both on 14 points.
