CAPE TOWN – The SA20’s fourth sea­son ex­plod­ed in­to life with a bound­ary-laden thriller at a heav­ing New­lands Friday, where Dur­ban’s Su­per Gi­ants (DSG) stunned de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons MI Cape Town (MICT) by 15 runs in a tour­na­ment record shootout in South Africa.

In a match that pro­duced 449 runs, the sec­ond-high­est ag­gre­gate in SA20 his­to­ry, DSG’s mam­moth 232 for 7 proved just enough to over­come a spec­tac­u­lar cen­tu­ry from MICT’s Ryan Rick­el­ton.

The Su­per Gi­ants, who fin­ished at the bot­tom of the ta­ble last sea­son, seized the ini­tia­tive af­ter be­ing put in to bat.

A pol­ished 96-run open­ing stand be­tween De­von Con­way 64 and Kane Williamson 40, laid a for­mi­da­ble plat­form.

MICT’s bowlers fought back briefly, but ex­plo­sive cameos from Hein­rich Klaasen 22, Aiden Markram 35, Evan Jones 33 not out, and a blis­ter­ing 10-ball 29 from David Wiese pro­pelled DSG past 230. George Linde with 2-46 was the pick of the MICT at­tack.

Faced with the high­est chase re­quired in the com­pe­ti­tion’s his­to­ry, MICT’s re­ply was spear­head­ed by a breath­tak­ing in­nings from Ryan Rick­el­ton.

The open­er smashed a ca­reer-best 113 from just 63 de­liv­er­ies, ham­mer­ing a record 11 six­es, the most by a bat­ter in a sin­gle SA20 in­nings. He found sol­id sup­port from Ja­son Smith, who weighed in with 41, and Reeza Hen­dricks, 28.

West In­di­an Nicholas Pooran could on­ly man­age to score 15 be­fore he went to David Weise.

Need­ing 31 from the fi­nal two overs with six wick­ets in hand, vic­to­ry seemed with­in MICT’s grasp. How­ev­er, DSG’s young seam­ers dis­played re­mark­able com­po­sure un­der fire.

Kwe­na Mapha­ka and Eathan Bosch, who fin­ished with 4-46, ex­e­cut­ed their plans to per­fec­tion, trig­ger­ing a dra­mat­ic col­lapse of 3 wick­ets for 15 runs in the last 12 de­liv­er­ies.

MICT’s charge fell short at 217 for 7, hand­ing DSG a state­ment vic­to­ry to start their cam­paign. CMC