Two SA20 matches will be held on Wednesday, with the Pretoria Capitals facing MI Cape Town at Newlands and Sunrisers Eastern Cape hosting Paarl Royals in Gqeberha.
After losing their first two games of the competition, assistant coach Mandla Mashimbyi believes the Pretoria Capitals can find some momentum, but they need to turn things around in their SA20 match against defending champions MI Cape Town at Newlands on Wednesday (5.30pm start).
Both teams got off to poor starts and were desperate for points in the early stages of the annual T20 league.
While the Capitals lost both their games thus far, the Cape Town outfit had picked up only two points from a rained out clash against Durban’s Super Giants last week.
“Losing two games in a row is not nice, but I think there’s still time for us to really recover,” Mashimbyi said.
“We need to regroup now and come back, and make sure that in Cape Town we get our first win, and you just never know what the competition can give you after that.”
Confident in their batters
In their previous fixtures, against Joburg Super Kings and Sunrisers Eastern Cape, the Capitals had fallen short in run chases.
However, Mashimbyi felt they had the firepower in their batting line-up to put up a fight if they could hit their straps, as they attempted to stay in the hunt for the playoffs.
In both games they had played thus far, their batters had compiled more than 140 runs in each fixture. But he felt building bigger partnerships would be key if the Pretoria side were to recover their campaign with eight games remaining in the pool stages of the competition.
“The feeling I’m having with regards to our batting is that there’s just something that’s missing, and I hope maybe in the next few games we can find it because we do have power and we do have players that can bat for a while,” he said.
“The word ‘partnerships’ comes to mind for me, and I think once you’ve got two batters that have settled it will be a lot easier to chase scores.”
Sunrisers v Royals
In the earlier game on Wednesday, two-time former champions the Sunrisers are set to face Paarl Royals in Gqeberha at 1pm.
The Eastern Cape side are flying high after winning their first two games of the tournament, against Paarl Royals and Pretoria Capitals.
And the Royals will be eager to hit back after being crushed by 137 runs in their only game thus far against the Sunrisers in Paarl last week.
