‘DESPERATE’ NOT THE WORD FOR CAPITALS – NEESHAM

While Betway SA20 Season 1 was a very tightly contested competition, one team arguably looked destined for the title – Pretoria Capitals.

The men in blue from South Africa’s capital city, topped the group stages having won seven of their 10 matches, four of which were bonus-point victories and then comfortably saw off Paarl Royals (their opponents on Friday evening) in the semi-final.

However, the final at Wanderers didn’t go according to plan and Sunrisers Eastern Cape claimed the inaugural title.

Asked by SuperSport presenter Mark Nicholas whether that loss at the final hurdle made them ‘desperate’ to go one better in Season 2, Capitals’ stand-in captain Jimmy Neesham disagreed.

 “I wouldn’t say desperate is the word – we were very pleased with how we went about the whole tournament last year. All you can really do is have that consistency over the course of the whole month and sometimes you get beaten on the day.”

The ever-popular New Zealand allrounder was eager to give the Season 1 champions their due.

 “Sunrisers Eastern Cape obviously played better than us on the day – hat-tip to them. Hopefully we can get ourselves in a similar position this year near the top of the table and obviously use those lessons again,” Neesham said.

Uniquely, Capitals and Royals begin their campaigns with back-to-back clashes – Friday at Boland Park, Sunday at Centurion – so wouldn’t necessarily want to show all their cards in the first of those clashes. However, Neesham was candid in revealing what their strategy might be for Season 2.

“We feel that we have a pretty confident batting lineup and feel confident chasing any kind of score.”

Considering, big-hitting Englishmen Phil Salt and Will Jacks are at the top of that Capitals line-up followed by experienced locals in Theunis de Bruyn, Rilee Rossouw and Colin Ingram. Their confidence might be well-founded.

Neesham himself has also eagerly looked forward to the second edition of South Africa’s premier T20 league.

“I absolutely love it here and always look forward to coming over here… I’ve been counting down the days since last year. Very excited to get back into it and we have a great bunch of guys as well. We’ve pretty much kept the same core in tact since last year and very much looking forward to getting out there again with them.”

Neesham is standing in for Wayne Parnell as captain, as the left-arm seamer is still recovering from a shoulder injury.