Siddle, Short and Pretorius guide SFU to comfortable win
Peter Siddle (3/36) and Matthew Short (2/25) restricted Texas Super Kings to 152/9. In reply, Lhuan-dre Pretorius smashed an unbeaten 69 off 55, with Short adding a quick 31, as San Francisco Unicorns chased down the target in 17.5 overs.
TSK were asked to bat first. Siddle struck with his first ball, removing Saiteja Mukkamalla. Brody Couch then dismissed Faf du Plessis for six. TSK lost Milind Kumar in the Powerplay and Shubham Ranjane in the eighth over. Rilee Rossouw (36) and Wiaan Mulder added 31 off 22 before Rossouw was run out, leaving TSK at 81/5. They slipped to 86/7 before Hardus Viljoen (33*) pushed them past 150, with 50 runs coming off the final four overs.
Ravichandran Ashwin made his MLC debut, finishing with 0-24 in two overs.
SFU lost Finn Allen in the first over, but Pretorius and Short took charge. They reached 65 at the end of the Powerplay. Short fell for 31 off 19 balls in the ninth over. Pretorius reached his half-century off 32 balls in the next over. SFU eased to victory with Connor Esterhuizen (15th over) and Sanjay Krishnamurthi seeing them home.
Brief Scores: Texas Super Kings 152/9 in 20 overs (Rilee Rossouw 36, Hardus Viljoen 33*; Peter Siddle 3-36, Matthew Short 2-25) lost to San Francisco Unicorns 153/3 in 17.5 overs (Lhuan-dre Pretorius 69*, Matthew Short 31; Nandre Burger 1-13) by 7 wickets
