SA20: 'Couldn't ask for a better start from Kagiso Rabada,' says Reeza Hendricks after MICT beat Paarl Royals

MI Cape Town regained top spot in the third season of the SA20 following a 33-run victory over Paarl Royals on Monday. The win broke their tie at the top of the standings with Durban's Super Giants.

Newlands was packed to capacity for MI Cape Town's first home game of the season and the crowd were not disappointed.

New signing Reeza Hendricks top-scored for the hosts, collecting his first half-century for MI Cape Town. His 59 from 37 balls provided the foundation for them to post a formidable 172/7. He shared a 78-run partnership for the Rassie van der Dussen. One of the finds of the tournament, Delano Potgieter, then smashed 18-ball 29 for late innings flourish.

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During the defence, Kagiso Rabada removed fired up Joe Root and Lhuan-dre Pretorius in couple of overs of each other, both wicket maidens.

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Spinners George Linde and Rashid Khan polished off the win for MI Cape Town with figures of 3/15 and 2/18, respectively.



"The spirits have been good, obviously helps to win. We have two wins out of three now, that obviously helps but the guys are in good spirits. Everybody's getting on nicely and obviously the good performance we put on the field at this point has been good and helps and again hopefully (we) can continue the way it has," said Hendricks after the win.

With Root and Pretorius in great touch, Rabada came in and broke that partnership. Hendricks praised his teammate for the decisive role in the win.

"It wasn't his best ball to start off with but he got a wicket so we'll take that. (It) basically set the tone for us moving forward and for the rest of those overs. We needed that partnership to be broken and he did exactly that and got the crowd going, got the boys going and yeah, couldn't ask for a better start from KG," added Hendricks.



Joe Root was asked after the contest where did they go off the mark and he admitted they lost the momentum.

"Momentum is a big thing in this format. We got off to a flyer, didn't we? We were going really nicely. Two quite unusual dismissals of me and Lhuan-dre . Sometimes you lose two quick ones, you can have a little bit of a stutter.

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"It can be quite tricky, especially when you're chasing a total. I think the key for us is just not looking too far into it. We had almost played the perfect game first time round and then everything we tried didn't work tonight. I think not looking too much into either of them, just being true to how we want to go about this tournament, dusting ourselves down and being ready to take them on again on Wednesday," added Root.

The two Western Cape sides will meet again in the rematch of the Cape Town derby in a couple of days time at Boland Park on Wednesday.

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