Summer without Anrich Nortje is like summer without mangoes, litchis and pineapples.
Most recently Nortje has been turning out for the Sunrisers Eastern Cape in the SA20, helping them to top the log after the round-robin matches are over.
On Wednesday, Nortje’s Sunrisers take on the second-placed Pretoria Capitals at Kingsmead, with the winner progressing directly into Sunday’s final at Newlands.
In Thursday’s eliminator at Centurion, the Paarl Royals take on the Joburg Super Kings in a repeat of Monday night’s match, which was won by the Kings, in Paarl.
The losers of the eliminator drop out, while the winners play the losers of the Sunrisers versus Capitals match at the Wanderers on Friday night.
Nortje and his team, you rather feel, will be there or thereabout at the end of the week.
He’s not only part of what looks to be the best-balanced attack in the SA20, he’s been bowling at the speed of a blue beemer on the M1 highway at midnight.
Take one recent passage of play for the Sunrisers.
In last week’s match against the Joburg Super Kings, Nortje bowled the 14th over to the Kings’ left-hander, Akeal Hosein.
Getting into his rhythm as the over progressed, Nortje’s last ball was such a ripsnorter that Hosein was lucky he didn’t leave St George’s Park in a body bag.
You rather fancied that Hosein knew it, too, because as he backed away to leg after the wicked delivery had passed over his head, he could only giggle.
He giggled some more as he backed further away, after that, he giggled again because he knew how close he was to getting decapitated.
When the ball hit Quinton de Kock’s gloves 25 metres behind Hosein, “Quinnie” could only grin ruefully.
You could almost hear him mumble: “Eish, ‘Proper Dutchman’, that one was spicy.”
Nortje, who was christened “Proper Dutchman” by then Protea bowling coach Charl Langeveldt in 2020, was out with a stress fracture for the first half of 2025.
He played two matches for the Kolkata Knight Riders in the 2025 Indian Premier League before being struck with a recurrence of the injury.
He missed much of the rest of last year, but it’s good to see him thundering in with the trademark Nortje scowl.
There’s no substitute for raw pace and Nortje slots into what is a gun attack attack.
Thanks to coach Adrian ‘Adi’ Birrell’s wiles, the Sunrisers have left-arm pace (Marco Jansen), seam up and cutters (Adam Milne, should he recover from injury) as well as the left-arm spin of Senuran Muthusamy and James Coles.
When you’ve also got a revved-up De Kock, Jonny Bairstow, Jordan Hermann, Matthew Breetzke and Tristan Stubbs in your side, you fancy that you can chase down pretty much anything.
They will surely rate their chances against Keshav Maharaj’s Capitals, who have gone from sweet to sour and back again through the preliminaries.
This said, it’s a rum old competition, and we shouldn’t get too far ahead of ourselves. A week can be a long time in cricket.
And there’s history between the sides. Cast your mind back to the Sunrisers’ faltering start to season one in 2023.
In it they lost twice to the Capitals early, before meeting them in the inaugural final.
Here they turned the tables, winning the SA20 for the first time.
While such memories will be pleasing for the Sunrisers, they’ll presumably be just the opposite for the Capitals.
Coach Birrell clearly has a template.
At the beginning of every campaign there’s the traditional getting-to-know-you braai on the Birrell beef farm, Uitkyk, not far from Makhanda, where Birrell also keeps bees.
Here, matters of culture are discussed.
Birrell has said in the past that he’s big on “authenticity, teamwork and strategic coalitions”.
Culture aside, he’s always fancied left-arm spinners, with Liam Dawson and Roelof van der Merwe fulfilling the role in previous seasons at the Sunrisers.
He’s also always liked savvy seam-up practitioners.
Daniel Worrall, the Australian-born English county player, for example, has played the Milne role in the past.
It all adds up to the fact that Birrell has a plan, and he looks for players to fill holes in the jigsaw rather than allowing players retained and bought on auction to dictate the team template and culture.
This season’s late recruit of Chris Green, the Aussie T20 journeyman, looks like an inspired move, with the resident two left-arm spinners (Coles and Muthusamy) already turning the ball in the opposite direction to opposition right-handers.
This said, it’s a rum old competition, and we shouldn’t get too far ahead of ourselves.
A week can be a long time in cricket.
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