SA20 2025 Qualifier 1 – MI Cape Town vs Paarl Royals Tips and Betting Preview

The first place in the SA20 2025 final will be secured on Tuesday when the Qualifier 1 match is played as the top two in the league battle it out to go straight through to the title showdown when the MI Cape Town take on the Paarl Royals.

This is the last match of the season which isn’t a knockout. The winner goes straight through to the final but the loser gets a second chance to get there in Qualifier 2 on Thursday but clearly getting maximum preparation time for the title clash is keenly desired.

MI Cape Town

This has already been an infinitely better season for the MI Cape Town than the two previous ones were. This will be the first time they will have competed in the playoffs. They have always had the personnel to be competing at the business end of the tournament but they haven’t been able to put it together at all so far. That has all changed this season though and they finished the league part of the campaign top of the pile and favourites to make the final from here.

Cape Town head into the postseason absolutely flying. They have won their last six completed matches and in their last two they have surpassed 200 with the bat and probably would in the one before that had they needed to get that many. The batting looks in good touch and the bowling has really come to the party too. Cape Town have even had the luxury of resting their bowlers in their last regular season game to ensure that they are fresh.

Paarl Royals

The Paarl Royals have been the pacesetters for most of the competition but having qualified for this particular match relatively early they took their foot slightly off the gas and ended up coming second in the league table. When you consider that they were the outsiders to win the competition before a ball was bowled in the tournament though, finishing second in the table is still a very good opening part of the campaign and now they will have a good go at winning the title.

The immediate concern for the Royals is that some injuries are coming along at the wrong time. Another issue could be that the form batters who carried them in the early part of the season no longer have that form, or in the form of Joe Root have left for international duty. That might not be an issue here because this is a free go at getting to the final so someone could have a day out and be a hero but were they to lose this match it might be significant come their knockout game later in the week.


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Key Players

Dewald Brevis probably hasn’t had the competition overall that he would have wanted but having clobbered 73 off just 32 balls in his last full innings he might be coming to the boil at just the right time to fire MI Cape Town into the final.

Mitch Owen offered more with the ball than the bat in his only outing for the Paarl Royals so far but you would imagine if the Royals are going to make the final at the first time of asking then the Australian will need to catch fire with the bat.

Betting

It was one win each when these two met in the regular season but since then I think it is fair to say that MI Cape Town have really kicked on whereas the Paarl Royals have stuttered and struggled a little more as injuries have started to hamper them. A couple of the key players for the Royals from earlier in the season don’t appear to be in the same form now so I do fancy MI Cape Town here. It might be that the biggest thing we can take from the regular season was how both went on this ground. MI Cape Town slaughtered Sunrisers Eastern Cape on this ground, rolling them for 77 while the Paarl Royals were thrashed here, scoring just 100 in total.

That confirms my suspicions that the MI Cape Town are better suited to this ground. They have more players who can muscle the ball out of the park with the bat in hand and their bowlers hit the deck which is what you have to do here. The Royals are a little top heavy with the bat, particularly if David Miller isn’t fit to feature, and probably lack that explosive pacer. I think MI Cape Town continue their good form and win this and win it fairly well.

Tips

Back MI Cape Town (-4.5wickets/12.5runs) to beat Paarl Royals for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Bet365

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