SA20 2023: Bowlers shine as Paarl Royals crush Joburg Super Kings in emphatic style

The Paarl Royals succeeded in registering their first victory of the ongoing SA20 2023 by getting the better of Joburg Super Kings, winning by seven wickets at Boland Park on January 13. This morale-boosting win has helped the Royals make some advancements in the points table after their heavy eight-wicket defeat against MI Cape Town in the curtain-raiser.

The Joburg Super Kings, who were outstanding with the bat in their opening fixture against the Durban Super Giants, looked a pale shadow of themselves as none of their batters clicked. Joburg skipper Faf du Plessis, who called it right at the toss, had no second thoughts on batting first as he decided to stick to his team’s strengths. However, a collective batting failure meant that it was a good toss to lose for the Paarl Royals.

The Johannesburg-based franchise never got going and kept losing wickets at regular intervals. They had already lost their top-order inside the Powerplay and in-form Donovan Ferreira’s early dismissal for just six runs against his name meant that the Super Kings needed to play out of their skins to even post a respectable total on the board.

Nonetheless, it was not to be as the Paarl Royals bowlers kept things tight and even wickets falling from one end did not help in Joburg’s cause. Meanwhile, tail-ender Lizaad Williams tried his level best to single-handedly take care of the run-scoring, but with no support from the other end, he was left stranded at 17 runs as the Joburg Super Kings were bowled out for just 81 in the 18^th over.

In reply, Paarl Royals lost the wickets of Jason Roy and Wihan Lubbe, but Jos Buttler and Dane Vilas ensured that they did not allow the Joburg bowlers to make a comeback. Even after Vilas was dismissed for a run-a-ball 13, Buttler (29* off 21) and David Miller (8* off 4) completed the formalities in the 11^th over.

Here’s how Twitter reacted to the Paarl Royals’ victory

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