The race to the SA20 playoffs continues at pace on Saturday with a double header of fixtures.
In the earlier clash at 1:30pm, the third-placed Sunrisers Eastern Cape host fourth-placed MI Cape Town at St George’s Park.
At 5:30pm, the bottom two teams, the Pretoria Capitals and Joburg Super Kings meet in a Highveld derby neither team can afford to lose.
On Thursday, the Sunrisers came up three runs short of a modest chase against the Capitals; but their captain Aiden Markram is remaining calm.
“We’ve been playing some good cricket, bowled and fielded well for 20 overs but ultimately with the bat we weren’t at our best. It’s 20 overs of us needing to reflect as a batting unit and putting in another good performance.”
The Sunrisers have a relatively settled top six, including Englishman Dawid Malan, Markram himself, and emerging stars Jordan Hermann and Tristan Stubbs. They’ve also had to go without Proteas Test captain, Temba Bavuma, who’s still recovering from a hamstring injury.
“I thought we’ve batted really well as a unit so far in the competition so there’s no need for us to panic,” said Markram, who has yet to fire this season after being named last season’s SA20 Player of the Season. “There’s lots of belief in the camp and we go again on Saturday so it’s a quick turnaround but by no means is there any panic in the camp.”
Markram says the team is focused on staying fresh, especially with the playoffs approaching fast.
“It happens quite often nowadays in cricket but physically it takes a toll on the body eventually. So, it’s important to get those recovery things right and being meticulous with that when you play back-to-back games; but the boys are pretty used to it from a mental point of view and we’ll be sharp as we always are. Hopefully that can be enough for us on Saturday.”
For MI Cape Town, their hopes of a playoff berth – and possible home final – became precarious this week following their loss to Durban’s Super Giants and results elsewhere.
Captain Kieron Pollard has called on their middle-to-lower order to contribute more.
“They’ve been painful losses but obviously I don’t want to use pitches as an excuse – that’s not a reason. We need to be better, particularly our middle-to-lower order – myself included. I can’t put it down to pitches because at the end of the day both teams play on them and 157 [DSG’s total] in any given match we should be on the winning side.”
Pollard rebuffed suggestions that the success of openers Ryan Rickelton and Rassie van der Dussen at the beginning of the season left those batting behind them “undercooked”.
“You can look back at all sorts and you know the best cricketer we have breaking records is ‘hindsight’. That would be another excuse. For us as professional cricketers we have a job to do – there’s roles and responsibility for everyone in the dressing room to do and the openers have been doing their job and we can’t fault them for batting well.
“They’ve been giving us good starts, so we have look ourselves in the mirror – the middle to lower order – and we have to come up with the answers as to how we’re going to go forward. We need to take stock and come out fighting because this is the back-end of the competition and where the business starts.”
MI Cape Town’s indifferent form has kept the Pretoria Capitals’ playoff hopes alive. They are on eight points, with the Joburg Super Kings propping up the log on six.
While the Capitals beat the Sunrisers on Thursday, their captain, Wayne Parnell, knows that they still have to be switched on for every match to come now.
“We’re obviously playing two of the teams who are close to us, and DSG as well, but we’ll be doing the old cliché of taking it one game at a time. We have to regroup for Saturday and try figure out what is the best combination to take on JSK.”
The Capitals are sweating over the fitness of Jimmy Neesham. The vastly experienced New Zealander pulled up with a hamstring injury during his batting stint – a crucial 27 when considering how the low-scorer against Sunrisers unfolded.
The Joburg Super Kings, meanwhile, arrive at Centurion on the back of a tight loss against the Paarl Royals – with their captain Faf du Plessis pinpointing their fielding as something they’ll need to improve on come Saturday evening. Another loss would place JSK two results behind in the playoffs race.
“We’re close [to getting on a run of form], but you need to do the small things well like not giving up runs in the field. You have to fight every inch to make sure in a close game that you’re competitive in all departments,” said Du Plessis.
“[Against the Paarl Royals] those small things were one or two half-chances that we dropped and also a few soft overthrows and twos and threes – if you count those all together then it’s over 20 runs.”
Sunrisers Eastern Cape squad: Aiden Markram (c), Tom Abell, Ottniel Baartman, Temba Bavuma, Liam Dawson, Sarel Erwee, Aya Gqamane, Simon Harmer, Jordan Hermann, Marco Jansen, Patrick Kruger, Dawid Malan, Farid Malik, Adam Rossington, Caleb Seleka, Andile Simelane, Tristan Stubbs, Beyers Swanepoel, Daniel Worrall.
MI Cape Town squad: Kieron Pollard (c), Tom Banton, Chris Benjamin, Dewald Brevis, Sam Curran, Connor Esterhuizen, Beuran Hendricks, Duan Jansen, Thomas Kaber, George Linde, Liam Livingstone, Delano Potgieter, Kagiso Rabada, Ryan Rickelton, Grant Roelofsen, Olly Stone, Nuwan Thushara, Rassie van der Dussen, Nealan van Heerden.
Pretoria Capitals squad: Wayne Parnell (c), Matthew Boast, Corbin Bosch, Eathan Bosch, Shane Dadswell, Theunis de Bruyn, Daryn Dupavillon, Colin Ingram, Will Jacks, Senuran Muthusamy, Jimmy Neesham, Migael Pretorius, Adil Rashid, Rilee Rossouw, Phil Salt, Paul Stirling, Tiaan van Vuuren, Kyle Verreynne, Hardus Viljoen.
Joburg Super Kings squad: Faf du Plessis (c), Moeen Ali, Nandre Burger, Gerald Coetzee, Sam Cook, Leus du Plooy, Donovan Ferreira, Dayyaan Galiem, Reeza Hendricks, Ronan Herrmann, Zahir Khan, Wayne Madsen, Sibonelo Makhanya, Aaron Phangiso, Romario Shepherd, Kyle Simmonds, Imran Tahir, David Wiese, Lizaad Williams.
Photo: Nic Bothma/Sportzpics
