Paarl Royals vs Pretoria Capitals, 19th Match, SA20, 2025-26 - Live Cricket Score, Commentary

That's it from game 1 here. We have another one coming up very shortly. Switch tabs to catch all the action. For now it's bye bye.

Sherfane Rutherford | Player of the Match: I think it was a tough pitch to bat on. One of the key for me was just trying to take it as deep, I think, from looking from inside. I know it's not an easy wicket to bat on, to start on. I think the best chance for me was just taking it deep and, you know, I actually get to cash in the end and it gave us a good score. (pitch) It's definitely a good experience because one thing it teaches you is to spend time and giving yourself the best chance. As we know, these wickets are a wicket that you need to bat on and spend time on. I think once you do that, you saw that David Miller almost pulled it off. So it's important to give yourself the best chance and anything can happen in the back end. (on him not bowling) No, I'm not. I think I I'm saving my lower back from bowling. So, yeah, once I'm scoring runs and the team is winning, that's important.

Keshav Maharaj | Pretoria captain: It's important for us to have got over that line. With the total we had, we knew we were still in the game, obviously it didn't seem too much, but we knew the wicket and the conditions. I must say, kudos to my bowlers and the fielders on how we went about our business. (Rutherford) Yeah, I think he's been a stalwart of our batting unit, especially coming in at the lower end of the innings and just putting in huge totals for us to give us a chance at victory. So, I think he's been working really hard and we know the calibre of a player he is. So, long may his good form continue. Yeah, very much so. We were always going to have to try and take wickets early up front and Lungi set the tone. And then whoever got called upon at any given time, just put that their hand up and it was a proper team effort at the end of the day. Yeah, Pretoria is a tough place to bowl, but yeah, I'm just happy to be contributing. And the main thing for me is that the team is getting over the line when we need to.

David Miller | Paarl captain: Those close games, you can look at all the different things, I can't really reflect right now, but I think they batted really well. Rutherford, played really well in the end, put us under pressure, and then I think losing three wickets in the six or seven overs put us behind. (pitch) Yeah, it actually did. It looked really, really good. It was obviously a touch on the slow side, it just got slower and slower as the day went on, so yeah, look it was one of those things. (Rutherford) Yeah, exactly. I thought the guys bowled really, really well, controlled it all the way through, and then obviously the last four or five overs, I still thought it was a good bowling performance from the guys. It's one of those things you can look at all the different angles from the batters and bowlers, but right now turnaround is short. It's unfortunate. (good learning curve for the youngsters) Yeah, for sure. It is a challenge. As I said, it gets slower and slower, so just batting-wise, you just want to get in good positions and making sure that you, as you said, are rotating the strike and trying to limit the dot balls. You know, boundaries come, but they are few and far between, so it's just about in between the boundaries, you need to rotate the strike well, so it's something that we obviously know, but they bowled really well. (on the points table) Yeah, for sure. We've done really well. You know, I think it's tough losing, but it's one of those things. As you said, business-end we've still got a game in hand. I think we're in a great position. We'll learn from this one and move on to the next.

16:39 Local Time, 14:39 GMT, 20:09 IST: A low-scoring game and the Capitals have won by 21 runs. Ngidi set it up with the early wicket of Lhuan-dre. Just the two contributions of note from Miller and Hermann. The rest couldn't come to grips with the surface at all. Maharaj was outstanding and he used Lubbe for 3 overs in the middle. Wickets and tight bowling strangulated the Royals. Too much to do in the end for the likes of Miller and even though he tried his best, it was too much. Stay tuned for the post-match stuff...

Williams to Miller, THATS OUT!! Caught!!