Sunrisers EC: Twitter
The lads in orange have done it! The Sunrisers Eastern Cape walked off with a whopping cheque for R35 million after winning the inaugural Betway SA20 Championship at the Wanderers on Sunday afternoon in emphatic fashion.
Aiden Markram's men did brilliantly to bowl the Pretoria Capitals out for 135 in 19.3 overs and then overcame some nervy moments towards the end to finish on 137/6 in 16.2 overs to claim victory by four wickets.
Again, it was that man Roelof vd Merwe, fittingly named the bowler of the series, who turned the match on its head with a man-of-the-match winning performance of 4/31 in his four overs as the Capitals lost their last six wickets for just 34 runs.
The veteran spin bowler of the Sunrisers Eastern Cape team finished with a tournament tally of 20 wickets, equal to the 20 taken by the Pretoria Capitals express bowler Anrich Nortje.
Adam Rossington then blazed 57 off 30 balls at the top of the order to set the Sunrisers on course to victory.
He shared in vital partnerships along the way with Jordan Hermann (22) and his captain and player of the series Markram (26) before Marco Jansen added the finishing touches with a trade-mark straight-six that was still climbing when it cleared the long-off boundary.
Markram paid tribute to his entire squad and back room staff and to the 'Orange Army' of supporters back home at St George's Park, who along with the brass band had provided such an incredible atmosphere at each home game in Gqeberha.
A further feather in the Sunrisers EC cap was them winning the Fair Play Spirit of Cricket award.
