Mpumalanga Rhinos charge into new season at CSA T20 Knockout Competition
The players are well prepared and determined to make the province proud.
The Mpumalanga Rhinos get their 2022/23 season off to a start with a T20 match against the KZN Tuskers today (Friday September 30).
The CSA T20 Knockout Competition will commence today, with the final scheduled for October 9.
The eight Division 2 teams will be divided into two pools.
The pool A teams, the Mpumalanga Rhinos, Eastern Storm, KZN Tuskers and South Africa U19 will be based in Pietermaritzburg.
The Garden Route Badgers, Northern Heat, Eastern Cape Inyathi and Limpopo Impalas will be in pool B, based in East London.
Each team will play the others in its pool once with four log points being awarded for a win, and two for a draw or abandoned match.
The top two teams in each pool will advance to the semifinals on October 8.
The final will be played the following day.
It is a tough schedule for all the teams, with 16 matches squeezed into two weekends.
Each team will play on three consecutive days this weekend.
Mpumalanga Rhinos’ captain, Yassar Cook, is confident that the team will excel in the CSA T20 Knockout Competition.
“We are well prepared. The guys are really excited. We worked hard in the off season. The last month has been good. We had a few warm-up games in which the boys expressed their intentions. We need to do the basics well. We are good enough to get to the final. We are not focusing on the other teams in our group. We are focusing on what we need to do. We will take it one game at a time. We need four wins,” said Cook.
Coach Gordon Matheson is satisfied with the hard work put in by the players in the preseason.
“It was a long preseason, but we kept it enjoyable. We spent time in Pretoria and Joburg preparing. We are as ready as we can be. It is now a case of climbing on the bus on Wednesday and playing. We have to go and do it out in the middle,” said Matheson.
The Rhinos T20 schedule (all matches at the Pietermaritzburg Oval)
• Friday September 30, 14:45 – Tuskers vs Rhinos
• Saturday October 1, 13:35 – Eastern Storm vs Rhinos
• Sunday October 2, 09:30 – Rhinos vs SA U19.
Two born-and-bred Lowvelders are contracted to the Rhinos. Bowler Jon Hinrichsen attended Laerskool Laeveld and Hoërskool Nelspruit. All-rounder Blake Schraader is an alumus of Skukuza Primary School and Hoërskool Nelspruit.
• The CSA Division 2 Four-day Series will be played from the weekend of October 20 to 23, and conclude on the weekend of March 9 to 12, 2023.
• The CSA Division 2 One-day Cup will be played from December 3 to 29.
Meet the team
