Paarl Royals collapsed like a house of cards. (Photo-X/SA20)
SA20 Sunrisers Eastern Cape vs Paarl Royals: Something happened in the third match of the 2025-26 season of South Africa’s T20 league SA20 that cricket fans will remember for a long time. In this match played on 27 December 2025 at Boland Park, Paarl, Sunrisers Eastern Cape started the season on a great note by defeating Paarl Royals by a huge margin of 137 runs. But the real headlines were grabbed by the batting of Paarl Royals, which collapsed completely for just 49 runs. This is the lowest score in the history of SA20 league and something similar was seen with RCB in IPL in the year 2017.
Eastern Cape’s strong batting
After winning the toss, Sunrisers Eastern Cape chose to bat first. Their openers gave a strong start, then Jordan Harman played a stormy innings in the middle overs. Harman scored unbeaten 62 runs in just 28 balls, which included 5 fours and 4 sixes. Quinton de Kock and Jonny Bairstow also made useful contributions, due to which the team scored 186 runs losing 4 wickets in 20 overs. Nothing special was seen in Paarl’s bowling and all the bowlers proved to be expensive.
Paarl Royals’ batting collapsed like a house of cards
Paarl Royals had a bad start while chasing the target. The wicket fell in the first over itself and the batsmen started returning to the pavilion quickly. Enrique Norkhia bowled explosively and took three wickets in one over. He took 4 wickets for just 13 runs in 3 overs of the spell. Adam Milne also took 2 wickets, while Tharindu Ratnayake and the rest of the bowlers completed the remaining work. Paarl’s team was reduced to just 49 runs in 11.5 overs. Apart from only 2 batsmen, no one could cross double figures, and the team lost wickets continuously.
Something similar happened with RCB also
Seeing this performance of Paarl Royals, cricket fans were reminded of the 2017 IPL, when Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) was all out for just 49 runs against Kolkata Knight Riders. In that match also, the team adorned with star batsmen was a complete failure. Similarly, despite having experienced players like David Miller in Paarl Royals, the batting lineup proved to be a miserable failure. The bowlers dominated this victory of Sunrisers. Enrique Norkhia was chosen player of the match for his lethal bowling. This start was excellent for the Eastern Cape under the captaincy of Tristan Stubbs.