With MI Cape Town taking down the defending champions Sunrisers Eastern Cape, SA20 2025 got underway in stunning fashion on Thursday. The curtain raiser saw uncapped South African all-rounder Delano Potgieter starring with both bat and ball while scripting history to stun the host's crowd.
Potgieter scored a brisk 25 from 12 balls, including a momentum-shifting last over of the Mi Capetown innings when he struck 16 balls off Jansen's last 4 balls to lift his team to a formidable total of 174/7 that proved enough in the end against the Sunrisers Eastern Cape.
Delano Potgieter Rattles Up Sunrisers With a Five-Fer
However, Potgieter's remarkable showing was not up to his breezy cameo with the bat only; he delivered the goods with his military medium pace too, snuffing out all last five wickets by himself to fold out Sunrisers to a mere 77, helping MI Cape Town to open their campaign with a whopping 97-run victory, their first win against the defending champions in the history of the tournament.
This spectacular effort with the ball of 5/10 helped Potgieter's name to be etched in the annals of the SAT20 league. With dousing all the hopes of his team through his heroic figures,He has now registered the second-best performance in the league by a bowler and the best by a medium pacer.
Best bowling figures in SA20
- Roelof van der Merwe: 6/20 in 4 overs
- Delano Potgieter: 5/10 in 3 overs
- Noor Ahmad: 5/11 in 3.2 overs
Potgieter was entrusted with responsibility in the 11th over when the Sunrisers were on tenterhooks at 4/49. With the first delivery, he conjured magic by flattening Swanepoel's stumps with a ripper; the 28-year-old sent Bedingham and Markram packing in the next five balls to kill the game. Potgieter completed the formalities by scalping the remaining two wickets as well to earn a five-fer in the process of helping MI Cape Town to do the unthinkable of getting the better of Sunrisers for the first time.
With this sensational return of 5/10, Potgieter also clubbed himself in the elite company of Jaspreet Bumrah and Lasith Malinga. He has become the seventh bowler from an MI franchise to pick up a fifer in T20 leagues.
MI bowlers to pick up fifers in franchise leagues:
- Lasith Malinga: In IPL vs. DD in 2011
- Harbhajan Singh: In IPL vs CSK in 2011
- Munaf Patel: In IPL vs. KXIP in 2011
- Lasith Malinga: In CLT20 vs CSK in 2012
- Alzarri Joseph: In IPL vs. SRH in 2019
- Jasprit Bumrah: In IPL vs KKR in 2022
- Akash Madhwal: In IPL vs. LSG in 2023
- Jasprit Bumrah: In IPL vs RCB in 2024
- Delano Potgieter: In SA20 vs SEC in 2025
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