Blue is the warmest colour: MI Cape Town clinch SA20 title

Blue is the warmest colour: MI Cape Town clinch SA20 title

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JOHANNESBURG: The one truism in T20 cricket? Mumbai Indians and their sister concerns around the world just win. The New York side won the inaugural Major League Cricket. The Emirates outfit, part of the International League T20, won in 2024. Mumbai Indians, the OG, wrote the grammar on how to be a successful, trophy-laden franchise. MI Cape Town? For the first two years of the side's existence, they were in danger of being classed as the runt of the litter. In 2023, in the SA20's inaugural edition, and 2024, they finished bottom.

Hello. This wasn't normal.

Normalcy was restored in 2025 as MI Cape Town, in front of owner Akash Ambani, won the third edition of the SA20. In front of a packed crowd at the Wanderers Stadium, the Rashid Khan-led side beat Sunrisers Eastern Cape, back-to-back defending champions, by 76 runs. As soon as they won, fireworks erupted across the night sky to signal a first-time winner at a heaving stadium, with some fans coming in a good 150 minutes before the start of the final.

Opting to bat first on a surface with runs in it, they made 181 in their quota of 20 overs. Even if several of their star players had cameos to their name — both Dewald Brevis and Ryan Rickelton made attractive 30s apart from hitting more sixes than fours (15 compared to seven, it's normally the other way around in this format) — there was a feeling that they were short of a few runs.

There was one significant caveat, however. Sunrisers Eastern Cape's strong suit throughout the tournament has been their bowling. Their batting? Not so much. Skipper Aiden Markram had come on record many times to say the same thing. And so it proved as a misfiring batting unit fell short. When you are chasing in a big final, the conventional wisdom is at least one big partnership up front. Or not losing early wickets. Preferably both.

But losing a wicket early has been a thing SEC have done all season. Across 13 matches including the final, their average first-wicket partnership was 18.84 (for comparison, MI Cape Town's was 44.45). To be fair, David Bedingham and Tony de Zorzi had one of the hardest tasks up front — not losing a wicket against Kagiso Rabada and Trent Boult. Boult, who guarantees wickets with the new ball, bowled the perfect powerplay spell of 3-0-4-1 while Rabada applied the finishing touches, ending with figures of 4/25.

With the required run rate over 10 per over from very early on, SEC never really had a chance even if they had Tristan Stubbs and Markram in the middle-order.

The middle-order, ironically, is where MI Cape Town won the match thanks to an enterprising knock from Brevis, who went six crazy. In a matter of eight balls, he hit four of them above the boundary, including one which was Rishabh Pant-like as he took the bottom hand off the blade but still managed to muscle the slower ball into the stands on the leg side. Marco Jansen accounted for Brevis soon after but his cameo, though, ensured the Cape Town based franchise built up a head of steam through the middle overs after the platform provided by Rickelton and George Linde.

In the end, their ability to keep finding sixes was what proved to be the difference on the night.

What changed

While this will still go down as a relatively decent season for SEC — winning teams only tend to measure success by the presence of Cups — how did MI Cape Town turn it around after two seasons in the wilderness?

While speaking to the media in January, Rassie van der Dussen, who finished as the second leading run-getter in the league, had spoken about a 'different vibe' in the squad. "When you do so badly you learn what not do to," he was quoted as saying by sabcsport. "We really took those lessons of the first two years to heart."

As part of those lessons from the past, Van der Dussen, Rabada and a few others made a conscious decision to always back Rashid, the captain. "It's always tough for an overseas captain coming in, but we made a conscious decision — myself, Colin (Ingram), KG (Rabada), Dane Piedt and some of the senior players — to say, we're going to assist this guy as much as we can."

A job well done.

Brief scores: MI Cape Town 181/8 in 20 ovs (Rickelton 33, Esterhuizen 39, Brevis 38, Jansen 2/39, Gleeson 2/22, Dawson 2/40) beat Sunrisers Eastern Cape 105 in 18.4 ovs (De Zorzi 26, Abell 30, Boult 2/9, Rabada 4/25, Linde 2/20).