Joburg Super Kings moved to joint top of the SA20 table with Sunrisers Eastern Cape after their clash against Paarl Royals at the Wanderers on Thursday evening was abandoned due to inclement weather.
Both teams were awarded two points, lifting Super Kings up to 17 points, while Royals remained in third position on 15 points.
Royals captain David Miller had earlier won the toss under clear skies and elected to bowl. His Super Kings counterpart stated that he too would have taken first strike, and certainly
took advantage early on.
Du Plessis and his new opening partner James Vince struck a sweet note from the outset as they followed up their rapid 32-run stand against MI Cape Town with a more substantial 73 from only 7.3 overs.
Despite not quite middling the ball, Du Plessis still managed to hack his way to 39 off only 24 balls (6x4, 1x6) as he taught Royals teenage seamer Nqobani Mokoena a few harsh lessons on his Bullring debut.
Du Plessis took two boundaries off Mokoena’s first over before really putting his foot down in the second with three boundaries and a six in the follow up over.
With Vince also taking care of left-arm spinner Bjorn Fortuin through a six and four in the third over, the Super Kings raced to 64 without loss when the Powerplay drew to a close.
Faf du Plessis, James Vince, Sikandar Raza and Matthew de Villiers all made an impresssion at Wanderers before inclement weather intervened...
But the Royals tossed their ball to their golden arm Sikander Raza in the seventh over and the Zimbabwe T20 captain made an immediate impact with his very first ball of his spell when
he clean bowled Du Plessis with a gorgeous off-spinner that drifted in the air before gripping and turning through the gate to crash into the stumps.
The dismissal did not stem JSK’s momentum though with Matthew de Villiers and Vince adding a further 56 from 39 deliveries for the second wicket. De Villiers upstaged his senior partner, who had settled into the anchor role after reaching his maiden SA20 50 off 33 balls, with a rapid 30 off 22 balls.
At this stage JSK were targeting a total in the region of 200 before Raza (2/26) intervened again, having De Villiers caught on the long-off boundary, to pick up his ninth wicket of the competition in just three matches.
The JSK innings fell away a bit from hereon, especially after Wiaan Mulder, Vince and Shubham Ranjane all fell in quick succession before a floodlight failure further halted their momentum with Donovan Ferreira also perishing immediately after the resumption.
Royals had done well to claw their way back into the contest and would have felt confident of chasing JSK’s eventual 187/6, but ultimately had to settle for a share of the spoils when the lightning intervened.
