Cobras lurking in the Park can expect fiery wrath of Warriors

THE Warriors will be looking to build on their recent good form when they take on the Cape Cobras at St George’s Park in Port Elizabeth today in their final pool match of the 2017-2018 Momentum One-Day Cup season.

Fresh off sealing their qualification to the semifinals of the competition by beating the Knights in East London on Wednesday, they will now want to pick up some momentum ahead of their knockout match against the tabletopping Titans in Centurion next week.

“We are happy with the situation that we are in the semis, in terms of the performance [against the Knights].

“We did allow them back into the game which was disappointing, but we will discuss that and get it right for next time,” said Warriors interim coach Rivash Gobind.

“Throughout this competition we have struggled to get a run going and now we have won two in a row, so we would love to keep that going.”

Although the match is a bit of a dead rubber for the Warriors as they will finish fourth on the log regardless of the result, the Cobras still have it all to play for as they will want to seal a home semifinal, with the Dolphins breathing down their necks.

“The Cobras have been playing some fantastic cricket so it is going to be a great test for us, especially before the semis,” admitted Gobind.

“We are not taking anything for granted, the intensity might be a little bit down, but in terms of our prep and the way we want to go about it, we are going to try and simulate getting into a routine for that knockout game.”

The Warriors have named an unchanged squad that has won the last two games and will hope the consistency in selection helps the team continue to flourish.

Players who have starred over the last two games include Colin Ackermann, Yaseen Vallie, Jon-Jon Smuts, Gihahn Cloete, Sisanda Magala and Aya Gqamane, who have all made vital contributions at various stages, and they will want to continue that form. Against the Knights it was captain Smuts and Ackermann with the ball who dominated, picking up 3/31 and 3/33 respectively in superb 10 over stints, while Magala also contributed with 2/41 as they restricted the Knights to 216 all out.

“When they said they were going to bat, our message to the bowlers was we needed to bowl them out and it was a fantastic effort.

“I thought the way we went about executing our skills was pretty good, there is always room for improvement but on the whole I was pretty pleased,” said Gobind.

“I think our spinners have been a strength of ours when we play at home, so it was nice to see the both of them bowl in tandem so well.”

With the bat, the top five all got starts scoring 20 or more, but none were able to convert it to a big half century and a batting collapse meant Gqamane and Magala had to drag the team over the line with two wickets to spare.

“They are very capable with the bat and I think they showed a lot of the middle-order there and even the top order how to go about their business on that sort of slow wicket,” said Gobind.

“So we were pretty calm in here and had faith in them, Aya has batted pretty well this season and Sisanda has done it for us in the past, so in terms of that they just went about it perfectly.

“I was happy with the start and our top order definitely showed the potential they do have with the bat and the way that they played when they were in was absolutely brilliant.

“But in terms of us wanting to grow as a unit, as a team and as individuals I think that they will be honest enough to say that one of them needed to take real responsibility and get a big not out so that there is no flutter at the end,” said Gobind.

After today’s match, the Warriors will then turn their attentions to the massive challenge of the defending champion Titans, who have beaten them in three limitedovers finals over the past two seasons.

“We need to just adjust our mind-set going into the [Titans] game, we need to take all the learnings from our recent encounters with them in knockouts and try and find something different,” explained Gobind.

“I have no doubt that if we fire to our full potential, as we have done at times this season, that we can beat them.”

The Warriors and Cobras match gets underway at 1.30pm this afternoon.