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LEADERS COMING TO THE FORE FOR JSK AND SEC IN PLAYOFFS RACE

31 Jan 20242 mins

On Wednesday, Joburg Super Kings host Sunrisers Eastern Cape in a mouthwatering Betway SA20 Season 2 clash with playoffs places on the line.

While a victory at Wanderers for 5th-placed JSK wouldn’t guarantee them a place in the Playoffs it would mean either Pretoria Capitals or MI Cape Town would have to win both matches against each other to stand a chance.

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For Sunrisers Eastern Cape, the equation is simpler – win and they confirm their place in the Playoffs and move into second place. (It would also confine JSK, Capitals and MICT to only fighting for 4th place – an Eliminator slot.)

With so much on the line, it’s important for big players to come to the fore and JSK captain Faf du Plessis did just that in the crucial win over MI Cape Town on Monday night.

“The tricky part with not having played cricket for a while is that you’re looking for that feeling of rhythm, especially me, I’m a big rhythm player. So, with the [elbow] operation the first few games I felt almost like a diesel engine that’s taking a bit of time to kick in. It’s probably only two days before the [Pretoria Capitals] game that I started feeling a little bit better, started having better nets and then you just need time in the middle and almost to hit one ball in the middle of the bat and then get the feeling of ‘there it is, it hasn’t really gone anywhere’.

Du Plessis’ unbeaten 50 off 20 balls (alongside Leus du Plooy’s 41 not out off 14 balls) saw JSK past MICT in a win which the weather threatened to prevent from happening; but he sees it as the catalyst JSK must use for their remaining three matches.

“[The MICT win] is huge, especially in the way that we did it and to get a bonus point in a short game like that comes with real authority and almost a peg in the ground to let the competition know that we’re still fighting and we’re not going anywhere.”

As it happens, Sunrisers’ last match was also a narrow win over MICT in which their captain, Aiden Markram, also picked up his first 50 of the season. Markram was thankful for the partnership with Tom Abell which allowed him to ease into his innings.

“Tom played really well. He’s a fantastic player of spin and a fantastic player of seam. He plays really good cricket shots and he’s got quite a lot of options against spin so that takes a lot of pressure off me initially in my innings,” Markram said post-match.

“Obviously, I’ve been searching for a little bit of form so he allowed me to get myself in a little bit – I probably would have liked to be there at the end of our innings [vs MICT] and go into the innings change with momentum but still nice to spend some time out there.”

FULL SQUADS FOR WANDERERS

Joburg Super Kings: Faf du Plessis (captain), Moeen Ali, Doug Bracewell, Nandre Burger, Gerald Coetzee, Sam Cook, Leus du Plooy, Donovan Ferreira, Dayyaan Galiem, Reeza Hendricks, Ronan Herrmann, Wayne Madsen, Sibonelo Makhanya, Aaron Phangiso, Kyle Simmonds, Imran Tahir, David Wiese, Lizaad Williams.

Sunrisers Eastern Cape: Aiden Markram (captain), 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.