MI Cape Town beat Pretoria Capitals by 27 runs during the SA20 game on Friday. The defeat means that the Capitals are now out of the race to make it to the playoffs of the tournament. Rashid Khan led MI Cape Town became the second side after Paarl Royals to qualify for the knockout phase.
The incident in question happened on the fifth ball of the ninth over as Ingram smacked a full-blooded shot down the ground. Muthusamy stuck his hand out and took the return catch to dismiss Ingram for 16 runs from 12 balls with two fours and a six. Kyle Verreynne won the toss and put MI into bat first and saw the visitors reach 222/7 from their 20 overs.
At one stage, MI Cape Town were struggling at 80/3 inside ten overs. Reeza Hendricks and Dewald Brevis then added unbeaten 142 runs for the fourth wicket to help their team to a huge score. Hendricks was not out on 77 off 44 balls with four boundaries and five sixes. Brevis was not out on 73 runs off 32 balls with six fours and an equal number of sixes.
Pretoria Capitals knocked out of SA20 playoff race
Chasing 223 runs to win, the Capitals got a good start thanks to Will Jacks, who scored 39 off just 22 balls. Will Smeed was the best batter for the hosts with 36-ball 52 runs. Skipper Rashid then got two key wickets from Kyle Verreynne and Marques Ackermann to swing the game in favour of his side.
Skipper Kyle Verreynne was downcast after the match when he said, “I don't know how much we fell short there. 30 odd? I think if you look with the ball, you can find 15-16, and then with the bat as well. Batted nicely in parts but just didn't find the rhythm. Key wickets at key times left us short. I think it was a good wicket and I think we had a chance; we just didn't pull it off.”
Meanwhile, MI Cape Town skipper Rashid Khan said, “So happy with the way we played. Especially having those couple of tough years and then coming back and the way everyone played was pleasing. We had a couple of changes to have those players rested. It's not like a miracle happened and we went to the top of the table. We've put in a lot of hard work. We just think about bringing our best game to the middle, be it a dead rubber or any other game.”