South Africa’s emerging talent has dominated the opening rounds of the SA20 league, culminating in a thunderous display by 18-year-old Lhuan-dre Pretorius, whose 51-ball 97 secured a nine-wicket win for the Paarl Royals against the Sunrisers Eastern Cape yesterday.
From Dewald Brevis’ half century in the tournament opener, and then Bryce Parsons’ electrifying knock for the Durban Super Giants on Friday night — a burgeoning theme of the first few matches in the third season of the competition has been the brilliance of youth.
Kwena Maphaka, already one of the faces of this tournament, didn’t have his best game for the Royals, but still picked up two wickets and conceded just eight runs in the final over of the Sunrisers innings.
Pretorius was grateful for the support of England great Joe Root, with whom he shared an opening partnership of 132. “I’ve got to credit Rooty, he kept me calm and offered a lot of clarity for me,” he said.
Like Maphaka, Pretorius is awaiting his matric results tomorrow, and while he hasn’t reached the international stage at the same speed as his former SA under-19 teammate, a knock like yesterday’s will mean it won’t be long before that occurs.
Already this season for Northerns, Pretorius has made a hundred in his first-class debut, and the value of playing alongside a modern great like Root, who made 62 not out, will only accelerate his development. “Lhuan-dre is a seriously good talent. It was great to see him express himself that way,” said Royals captain David Miller.
For the SA20’s commissioner Graeme Smith, the manner in which Pretorius batted alongside Root offered the perfect example of the kind of “knowledge sharing” he knows will benefit South African cricket in the long term.
Pretorius said afterwards he’s been like a “sponge”, soaking up as much information as possible, something former England captain Ben Stokes noted made tournaments like the SA20 so important. “One of the many things franchise cricket has done is give young/inexperienced but incredibly talented players opportunities on the biggest stage against the best in the world and show off how good they are. Lhuan-dre Pretorius is doing that right now,” Stokes posted on X.
Meanwhile, last night’s second match between the Joburg Super Kings and MI Cape Town was interrupted by rain after just 5.2 overs of the Super Kings innings at the Wanderers.
The yellow-clad home team, who were backed by thousands of shrill blasts from whistles handed out to spectators, had reached 37/1 in pursuit of 141 when rain stopped play.
Joburg’s captain Faf du Plessis had chosen to bowl first, precisely to give himself clarity in the event of a Duckworth Lewis Stern-influenced run chase. Even he must have been surprised at the amount of movement on offer, especially with the new ball.
MI Cape Town, who had dominated the Sunrisers in the opening match on Thursday night, struggled against the moving ball, scoring just one four in the power play, only hitting their first six in the 11th over.
Like he did for the Proteas a month ago in the first T20 International against Pakistan, George Linde produced another salvage operation, turning an innings around that was teetering on 38/4 at the half stage, and guiding Cape Town to a total of 140/6.
Linde made an unbeaten 48 not out off 35 balls, and received critical assistance from Delano Potgieter, who hit 44 off 22 balls — the last 27 runs of his innings coming off only seven balls.
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