Between the Test match 259 and his SA20 heroics for MI Cape Town, Ryan Rickelton evolved into the all-format player he always wanted to be
Firdose Moonda19-Jan-2025Between his breakthrough, big-daddy double-hundred in the New Year’s Test and his match-winning 39-ball 89 for MI Cape Town (MICT) in the SA20, Ryan Rickelton caught something other than cricket balls – Covid.Yes, it’s still a thing and with cases rising in the Western Cape over the last three weeks, it’s been going around the cricket traps. It was also what kept Rickelton out of MICT’s last game in Paarl, after he had recovered from the hamstring niggle that sidelined him from their first two matches. Rickelton first experienced symptoms on Monday last week and said he was “man down for a good four or five days”, but is now “feeling a lot better” after what was his fifth dalliance with the virus. “I obviously still have it [Covid], but I’m fit enough to play,” he said after batting MICT to a bonus-point win over Joburg Super Kings (JSK).That’s a modest self-assessment of what he is capable of. With MICT chasing a challenging 173 for a win against a team they had already lost to once in this edition of the tournament, Rickelton batted at a strike rate of 228.20 and slammed six sixes, all in front of the wicket, in a display of complete authority that he wasn’t sure would come as soon as it did after the layoff.Related
Ryan Rickelton: 'T20 cricket is flipping hard. It's different, but it is harder than Tests'
Started from the bottom now they're here – the MI Cape Town story
Coetzee ruled out of SA20 but CSA still hopeful
der Dussen consciously evolves white-ball game amid injury scare
Misfiring top order leaves Sunrisers in danger of early sunset
“For my first game, I was a bit nervous and a bit itchy, because it’s obviously jumping formats. So I had a long hit yesterday, probably for about two hours, just to try and find my game and my groove,” he said. “But I wouldn’t have expected it to go how it has tonight. I was a bit skittish up front, but luckily Rassie [van der Dussen] takes that early risk as well. So it gives me a bit of time to get going. I’m also a lot more calm in my T20 game now that I have a bit of a blueprint and I’m just enjoying batting, in all honesty.”Van der Dussen took on the JSK bowling from the first over and would have been dismissed for 1 but was dropped at midwicket off a slog sweep when he tried to take on Donovan Ferreira. He went on to hit Ferreira over long-on for six to get MICT going in the third over. At that stage, Rickelton had only faced four balls but had enough time for a sighter and to sum up conditions. When Ferreira offered him width, he pounced on it, and the runs kept coming after that.MICT were 59 without loss after the powerplay and 101 for 1 after ten overs, which put the result beyond doubt, but it then became about how quickly they could get there. If chasing teams win inside 16 overs in the SA20, they earn a bonus point, but Rickelton “didn’t think we were even going to smell it, in all honesty” because “we were just trying to obviously win the game”. The 14th over changed all that.He tore into Evan Jones in the bowler’s second over and took 26 runs off it, which included fours through midwicket and over the covers, a straight six and one over extra cover. “That kind of got us closer,” he said. “But I still didn’t really think about it [the bonus point] until I got those two sixes away from [Matheesha] Pathirana [in the 15th over].”
“I’ve always felt I can be an all-format player. It’s not the easiest thing to do and It’s still an evolving kind of thing for me. I’m learning now that different formats can require different techniques and different mentalities as well”Ryan Rickelton
In that Pathirana over, Rickelton hit back-to-back sixes, though the second was dicey. He miscued and sent Pathirana high into the Cape Town sky, but the wind took the ball over the boundary even as Rickelton had started walking back. He was dismissed off the next legitimate ball, but the job was done and JSK were whiplashed in 15.5 overs.”What a player,” Albie Morkel, JSK’s assistant coach, said later. “Last season in the SA20, he really came on to the scene as a T20 batter. Before that, if you just purely look at his stats, he was just there and thereabouts, but he exploded on to the scene with that fantastic double-hundred [in the Test] the other day. Today, it just looked like the bowler couldn’t really bowl at him. That’s when you know a guy is at the top of his game. He scores in good areas, he’s got power. And obviously he is in good form as well.”Two weeks ago, at this same ground, Rickelton had hit one of the best knocks of the current South Africa Test team, and he has since also been named in the Champions Trophy squad. With him now also finding form in the SA20, Rickelton is emerging as an all-format run-scorer, to unlock a goal he had set for himself.The 259 against Pakistan in early January was Ryan Rickelton’s breakthrough innings in Test cricket•AFP/Getty Images”I’ve always felt I can be an all-format player. It’s not the easiest thing to do and It’s still an evolving kind of thing for me,” he said. “I’m learning now that different formats can require different techniques and different mentalities as well. I’m trying to obviously be consistent in the way I want to play. It is really hard to be a three-format player nowadays, but if you look at the guys that are doing well, like your Travis Heads and your [Rishabh] Pants, they play pretty much the same way in all three formats.”At Newlands, in particular, Rickelton’s way has been the ultra-aggressive way. Across his career, he has played 21 matches in all formats at the venue, and averages 59.90. That includes three first-class hundreds and three SA20 fifties, two of them not far from centuries. Last year, he scored an unbeaten 94 chasing 174 against Paarl Royals, which was a very similar story to his 89 chasing 173 this year. But there is a crucial difference. Then, MICT did not get the bonus point and finished bottom of the table by one point. This time, they did get it and now occupy top spot on the points table.After finishing last in the previous two editions, this win has also given MICT belief that they can turn things around. “This time last year and the year before we were two and two (wins and losses) and then obviously the downward spiral happened. So, there was a bit of emphasis today internally, especially from the guys that have been here all three seasons,” Rickelton said. “When Faf [du Plessis, the JSK captain, who scored 61 in 38 balls] got going, I thought, ‘oh no, here we go again’, so it’s awesome just to try to break ahead like that. But I think we really need to win two on the bounce just to give us that proper momentum.”MICT’s next game is in Durban on Tuesday, by which time Rickelton should have returned to full fitness health-wise, and is looking forward to a game with a “massive impetus”, he said. “If we can try and get two [wins] on the bounce, then we can just create that winning habit.”
