Ton-up Faf on fire for charged-up Super Kings

“It’s nice,” Faf du Plessis said on being the first player to score a century in the Betway SA20. 

That is like saying the crowd at the Wanderers on Tuesday night was hushed. 

Du Plessis, the Joburg Super Kings captain, delivered in a way his team, which has struggled with the bat, desperately needed.

Not that the tournament needed it, but it provided another highlight for an event that has captured the public’s imagination more rapidly than the organisers could have hoped. 

It will also ramp up the volume on chatter about Du Plessis and a possible role in the Proteas team, something the new white ball coach Rob Walter hinted at last week.

Du Plessis did not address that on Tuesday. 

Chasing 179 to beat the Durban Super Giants, he blasted an unbeaten 113 that featured eight fours and eight sixes, with a record opening partnership for the Wanderers of 157 with Reeza Hendricks. 

To say Hendricks struggled would be an understatement too.

He finally ended on 45 off 46 balls, and that does not look bad, but for the first 40 balls of his innings he found the middle of the bat just once. 

Never mind, Du Plessis was imperious. “It was a really nice wicket, a bit sticky in the beginning with the spinners.

“And then typical Wanderers; once you get yourself in you can score freely,” he said.

“It was tricky; the ball was swinging. Reece Topley bowled really well and Keshav Maharaj got the ball to stick.

“It did feel like we were falling behind and that’s when you get those butterflies, but you also know that you need one over, and luckily we got that.”

It was the 12th over, when Du Plessis launched consecutive sixes off Jason Holder, in which 19 runs were scored.

The momentum had shifted and even though Hendricks was struggling, he became caught up in the fervour and smashed two boundaries in the 16th over, bowled by Simon Harmer.

That turned the match decisively in the Super Kings’ favour. 

“That was one of the best knocks I’ve seen in T20 cricket,”  Super Kings assistant coach Albie Morkel said of Du Plessis’s performance.

“I was speaking to some of the Super Giants bowlers and they found it really tough to bowl at him.

“When a guy is playing like that it is difficult to stop, especially at the Wanderers.”

One of those bowlers, English international Topley, said it was a case of Du Plessis displaying all of his nous and experience.

“He stuck in there; it wasn’t the fastest start, but that’s where his experience showed. He cashed in when he could.”

Topley, who claimed 1/19, and was the only bowler to exert any control, drew an intriguing comparison between Du Plessis and 24-year-old Matthew Breetzke, one of the top young domestic batters, that underlined why the SA20 is so valuable to SA cricket. 

“Faf hung in there and once he was comfortable with conditions it was quite hard to rein him in. Similarly, on our side, you had Breetzke; he stuck with it, but then got out. [Faf’s] experience definitely showed tonight,” Topley said.