The Joburg side remain fourth in the standings, but they are still in the hunt for the knockout stages.
The Joburg Super Kings need to find some rhythm, head coach Stephen Fleming admits, in the closing stages of the round-robin phase of the SA20 league.
The Super Kings lost to Sunrisers Eastern Cape by 61 runs in their eighth match of the opening round in Gqeberha on Wednesday.
Picking up their fourth win in eight games, the Sunrisers became the first team to qualify for this season’s SA20 play-offs as they reached the knockout stages for the fourth year in succession.
Meanwhile, the Super Kings remained fourth in the standings, still in the hunt for the play-offs with two matches remaining.
Multiple setbacks
After winning three games on the trot at the start of the competition, the Joburg side had now gone five straight games without a win (with three losses and two rained-out matches).
They had also experienced multiple injury setbacks, and Fleming said they were struggling to regain their momentum.
In their previous game against MI Cape Town at the Wanderers last week, the Joburg side suffered their latest blow when they lost veteran captain Faf du Plessis, who picked up a thumb injury while fielding. He required surgery and had been ruled out of the rest of the competition.
In the regular skipper’s absence, they were led by all-rounder Donovan Ferreira against the Sunrisers.
“We lost our captain in the last game, so we had to make some pretty big adjustments and introduce players to the squad, so we’ve really concentrated on that and it can be a little bit unsettling,” Fleming said after the match.
“So we’re really just trying to get back into some sort of rhythm. We’ve had a couple of games that have been rain interrupted, so it’s been a sort of frustrating 10 days.
“We’ve lost players, we’ve had rain-outs, and now a couple of under-par performances, so really we’ve been focusing on what we need to do and we came up short today.”
Looking ahead
In their last two crunch matches of the opening round, the Super Kings were set to host the Pretoria Capitals at the Wanderers on Saturday before closing out the league stage of the competition against the Paarl Royals at Boland Park next Monday.
“We go back to Johannesburg now, which in terms of home ground advantage we’ve got to make the most of it, but against a side that’s in form in Pretoria,” Fleming said.
“It’s a very close competition, and we started off well but we’ve just sort of dipped off, so we’ve got to find something from within to get back in the contest.
“It’s not just about just scraping into the semifinals, but it’s about creating some rhythm and getting some confidence back.”
