MSL 2019: Final, Paarl Rocks vs Tshwane Spartans: De Villiers' record-breaking 2019, Paarl's maiden win over Spartans, Henry's milestone match and more stats

The Paarl Rocks won the Mzansi Super League 2019 edition after a convincing 8-wicket win in the final against Tshwane Spartans. The Rocks invited the Spartans to bat first in the home finale. Except for AB de Villiers, no batsman from Spartans could score the runs at a brisk pace.

De Villiers continued his 2019 form scoring a 37-ball 51 but got out in the 17th over. The Spartans finished with 147/6 which turned out to be too small for the Rocks as Henry Davids smashed an unbeaten 44-ball 77 with 12 boundaries. Dwaine Pretorius struck 43 in only 21 balls as the home team won the final with 34 balls to spare.

All the statistical highlights from the Mzansi Super League final 2019-20 won by the Paarl Rocks:

1 – The 8-wicket win in the final is the maiden victory in the Mzansi Super League for Paarl Rocks against Tshwane Spartans in the five meetings. The Spartans won the last season’s matches by 1-run and 4 wickets. The Tshwane team won both the league matches against Paarl by 8 wickets; the same margin with which the Rocks won the final against the Spartans.

3 – Number of players including AB de Villiers have scored 1000+ Twenty20 runs in a calendar year at an average more than 50 and strike rate in excess of 150. De Villiers scored 1580 T20 runs this year at an average of 52.66 and a strike rate of 156.90. Chris Gayle achieved this feat in two different years – in 2011 and 2015 while Manish Pandey also averaging 50+ at 150+ SR in 2019 T20s where he scored 1038 runs.

6 – The Paarl Rocks have won each of their last six matches while chasing in the Mzansi Super League. The streak began in the midway through the inaugural 2018/19 edition. The Rocks won all the three matches in 2019/20 MSL where they were chasing a total.

15 – The 51-run knock by AB de Villiers in the final is his 15th score of 50+ in the Twenty20 format in 2019. These are the joint 2nd most fifty-plus scores by any player in a calendar year. Chris Gayle and Virat Kohli had 16 fifty-plus scores in 2012 and 2016 respectively while David Warner and Babar Azam also have 15 scores of 50+ in the T20s this year.

150 – The final match was Henry Davids’ 150th match in Twenty20 cricket on South African soil. He thus became the first player to feature in 150 T20s in South Africa. In this process, he went past Albie Morkel’s 149 T20 appearances in South Africa.

1580 – Runs AB de Villiers has amassed in the Twenty20 format in 2019; the most by a South African and overall the 4th most by any player in a calendar year in Twenty20s. Chris Gayle and Virat Kohli aggregated 1665 runs in 2015 and 1614 runs in 2016 respectively while Babar Azam has 1607 runs in 2019. The previous most T20 runs in a year by a South African were 1378 runs by Colin Ingram last year.