THE BOWLERS WHO STRIKE BEFORE BEING STRUCK

In this week's Trivia Tuesday, we look at the bowlers with the best strike rates across the two seasons of Betway SA20 and, using a minimum of 20 overs bowled, there’s a clear winner – Durban’s Super Giants’ Junior Dala.

The 34-year-old fast bowler played only one match during the inaugural season of South Africa's premier T20 cricket league (away against Pretoria Capitals) but promptly claimed 3/33 to highlight how effective he can be. With DSG again having an array of pace bowling riches in Season 2, Dala had to be patient for playing opportunities but when given them – five matches in total – he grabbed them. Not least when he claimed 5/26 in a devastatingly accurate spell of bowling against the self-same Capitals, this time at Kingsmead. All told, Dala has claimed 16 wickets in the League off just 142 balls at a strike rate of 8.87.

Dala is followed by a quartet of bowlers who claimed a wicket every 10 balls or thereabout.

Joburg Super Kings speedster Gerald Coetzee claimed 17 wickets in the 230 balls he bowled during Season 1, yielding a strike rate of 10.05. Undoubtedly, JSK captain Faf du Plessis missed that ability to take a wicket so regularly when Coetzee sat out the 2024 campaign while recovering from injury.

The third-most lethal bowler in the League's short history is Sunrisers Eastern Cape’s Ottniel Baartman. With 30 wickets to his name in the competition he is the leading wicket taker, but his value is further illustrated by the fact those came every 10.10 deliveries – a statistic which must have come into the reckoning when the Proteas T20 World Cup squad was selected.

Meanwhile, Roelof van der Merwe (Sunrisers Eastern Cape) and Lizaad Williams (Joburg Super Kings) in fourth and fifth place have identical records: 20 wickets off 204 balls. Of course, Van der Merwe only played in 2023 when he was the joint-highest wicket taker and was voted as the Bowler of the Season - as Baartman was in Season 2.

Positions 2-5 are taken up by Joburg Super Kings' Gerald Coetzee, Sunrisers Eastern Cape's Ottniel Baartman and Roelof van der Merwe (the names on the League's Bowler of the Season award) and 'the king of Wanderers', Lizaad Williams.

In sixth place sits the only Season 2 newcomer in the top 10, DSG’s Afghanistan left-arm spinner Noor Ahmad, who claimed 12 wickets at a strike rate of 11.66 as batters struggled to read his 'mystery' deliveries.

A pair of Pretoria Capitals speedsters, captain Wayne Parnell (24 wickets at 12.08) and Anrich Nortje (20 wickets at 12.85), follow Noor then a pair of allrounders, Paarl Royals’ Evan Jones (11 wickets at 13.33) and DSG’s Dwaine Pretorius (18 wickets at 13.52) complete the top 10.

 MI Cape Town are the only team without a bowler among the best strike rates in the League.

BEST BOWLING STRIKE RATES IN SA20 HISTORY

1. Junior Dala (Durban's Super Giants 2023-24) | 16 wickets | 142 balls | 8.87 strike rate

2. Gerald Coetzee (Joburg Super Kings 2023-24) | 17 wickets | 230 balls | 10.05 strike rate

3. Ottniel Baartman (Sunrisers Eastern Cape 2023-24) | 30 wickets | 303 balls | 10.10 strike rate

4. Roelof van der Merwe (Sunrisers Eastern Cape 2023) | 20 wickets | 204 balls | 10.20 strike rate

5. Lizaad Williams (Joburg Super Kings 2023-24) | 20 wickets | 204 balls | 10.20 strike rate

6. Noor Ahmad (Durban's Super Giants 2024) | 12 wickets | 140 balls | 11.66 strike rate

7. Wayne Parnell (Pretoria Capitals 2023-24) | 24 wickets | 290 balls | 12.08 strike rate

8. Anrich Nortje (Pretoria Capitals 2023) | 20 wickets | 257 balls | 12.85 strike rate

9. Evan Jones (Paarl Royals 2023-24) | 15 wickets | 200 balls | 13.33 strike rate

10. Dwaine Pretorius (Durban's Super Giants 2023-34) | 19 wickets | 257 balls | 13.52 strike rate