Ahmad grabs four wickets as Sunrisers reach 165

Noor Ahmad claimed a superb 4-25 for Durban’s Super Giants but visitors Sunrisers Eastern Cape still managed to total a challenging 165 for five in their Betway SA20 match at Kingsmead in Durban on Friday night.

Sunrisers, winless in their first three matches, won the toss and chose to bat first in a match that they needed to win.

England international Zak Crawley and David Bedingham began well, helped by a first over from Bryce Parsons in which his first five balls were all full-tosses.

Naveen ul-Haq made the breakthrough in the fourth over, however, when Bedingham got a top-edge to a pull, enabling Noor to take a good catch at “45” running back.

Crawley was then joined by Somerset’s Thomas Abell and the pair added a workmanlike 48 in 38 balls for the second wicket without taking any chances before Crawley became Noor’s first victim as the left-arm wrist spinner’s delivery ripped through his defences as he failed to get to the pitch of the ball.

Noor’s next ball was another beauty, similar to the one before, and Markram was trapped leg before after the not-out decision was referred.

It was Markram’s second consecutive golden duck.

Jordan Hermann prevented the hat-trick but was leg before shortly afterwards to the same bowler as the Afghan tweaker threatened to undermine the Sunrisers’ innings.

Between the eighth and 12 overs, only 29 runs were scored at the expense of three wickets.

But Abell was then joined by Marco Jansen and the pair added 53 in 37 balls to restore some momentum to the innings.

Still, it took until the 16th over before Jansen clipped Naveen for the first six of the innings.

Noor then dismissed Abell for a valuable 57 (39 balls, 5x4s) that had provided a strong plank in the innings before Jansen (36* in 26 balls) and Tristan Stubbs (15*) took the innings to its conclusion.

DURBAN'S SUPER GIANTS: MP Breetzke, B Parsons, KS Williamson, Q de Kock†, PWA Mulder, H Klaasen, JF Smith, CR Woakes, KA Maharaj*, Noor Ahmad, Naveen-ul-Haq

SUNRISERS EASTERN CAPE: DG Bedingham, Z Crawley, TB Abell, AK Markram*, T Stubbs†, J Hermann, M Jansen, LA Dawson, SR Harmer, OEG Baartman, RJ Gleeson