It was like October 2024 all over again: a Sunday afternoon at the Wanderers, Lutho Sipamla in the home side and wickets tumbling. Four months ago almost to the day, Sipamla destroyed the Titans in the final of the T20 Challenge, finishing that match with 4/12, with Heinrich Klaasen and his current Joburg Super Kings teammate Donovan Ferreira among his victims in that match.
Though not the chief destroyer on Sunday against the Sunrisers Eastern Cape, it was Sipamla who set the tone for the Joburg Super Kings in this crucial nine-wicket Betway SA20 victory for the Kings, from the first ball.
Unlike last Friday in the reverse fixture between these teams when he uprooted Zak Crawley’s stumps off a no-ball, on Sunday Sipamla kept his feet in the right place and served up a beautiful delivery that nipped away from the England right-hander, finding the edge to give Ferreira an easy catch at slip.
Crawley was furious — obviously at getting out for his fifth single-figure score in this tournament, but also at the fact that he was likely distracted by the shadows cast by smoke from the prematch fireworks which drifted over the pitch as Sipamla released the ball. The Super Kings and their raucous support couldn’t have cared.
Sipamla turned up the volume at the end of that first over when Tim Abell was bowled via the inside edge.