ROYALS SHOW THE VALUE OF HOME ADVANTAGE

Royals show the value of home advantage

Week Two of the 2025 SA20 season saw Paarl Royals establish themselves as the team to beat, racing to a 6-1 record in their first seven games, already cementing a playoffs berth with three games to spare.

Paarl Royals' spinners have certainly been a standout to their success, particularly at home where they’ve won all four of their games so far this season. They’ve slowly increased their reliance on spin as the average turn at Paarl has risen during the competition.

During their last victory at Paarl over Pretoria Capitals, the Paarl Royals became the first side ever in franchise T20 cricket to bowl 20 overs of spin in an innings, a clear sign of their willingness to take every advantage of their strength as a bowling unit as well as the home conditions at Paarl.

They’ve also shown flexibility in terms of team selection, using left-arm spinner Dunith Wellalage exclusively in home matches, with Eshan Malinga coming in to play in away games where they may need to bowl more pace - the Royals have taken conditions and opposition based selection to a whole new level by showing such flexibility in this campaign.

Mujeeb shining as a multi-phase bowler

Mujeeb Ur Rahman is the joint leading wicket-taker in the competition with 12 wickets in his seven games but it’s his economy rate of 6.78 which is just as impressive when you consider how he’s been deployed with the ball.

Mujeeb has been asked to bowl in all three phases of the innings for the Royals and has delivered with an economy rate below seven in all three phases, while also regularly taking wickets.

Mujeeb has had real success targeting the stumps with 9 wickets with balls projected to hit the stumps at an average of 6 and an economy of 6.10 - 32% of his deliveries so far in this competition are hitting the stumps, his highest rate in a T20 franchise competition since 2019.

Emergence of Joe Root as an all-rounder

Joe Root isn’t slowing down as a T20 player despite his status as the world’s number one Test batter - he’s the tournament’s leading run scorer after going back to the top of the charts with an unbeaten 78 off 56 against Pretoria Capitals - he complimented his batting performance with figures of 2-32 from his four overs with the ball to deliver a true T20 all-round performance. 

Root’s innovation against both pace and spin with the bat has been key - he’s yet to be dismissed playing a scoop or sweep shot in this competition while scoring 43 off 28 balls playing such shots, including hitting 4 x 4s and 2 x 6s using his innovative strokes. 

It’s not just with the bat where Root’s innovation is coming to the fore, with the ball he’s generally delivering the ball from around the wicket and going wide with his low, slingy release point in an attempt to get under the swing of a batter. On average he’s delivered the ball from his widest ever release point while his release height of 1.91 metres is also his lowest in a competition. Even at the age of 34, Joe Root is still adding new skills to his armoury as a T20 asset. 

Taking on the Powerplay, setting up for Miller at the death

As a batting unit, the Royals understand the importance of getting off to a fast start inside the Powerplay considering that they’re often facing difficult conditions in the Middle Overs, particularly at home.

Royals' batters occupy three of the top five spots when it comes to the fastest scoring batters in Overs 1-6 so far in the competition, with left-hander Rubin Hermann continuing to take on the Powerplay should either Lhuan-dre Pretorius or Joe Root be dismissed.

During the middle phase of the innings the Royals batters generally dig in and look to take the game deep with wickets in hand, looking to set a platform for their skipper and key death overs batter, David Miller.

Miller is the leading run scorer in the final five overs of the innings so far, at times he’s had to bat deep himself to set the platform for him to accelerate but the Royals have also looked to hold him back to allow him to take on the death overs where his power-hitting against pace is at its most destructive.

During their last outing against the Capitals, they opted to send Wellalage in the middle overs to counter the Capitals spinners and save Miller for the backend - Miller came to the crease in the 15th over, his latest entry point in this competition and he delivered with an unbeaten 29 off 18 to take the Royals to a winning total.

The Paarl Royals are certainly the team to beat in this year’s competition, but will they come unstuck as the tournament shifts to Gqeberha, Centurion and Johannesburg for the playoffs? And how will they replace Joe Root as he jets off to international duty? These are the key questions that the Royals thinktank will be wary of despite their success so far in SA20 2025.