Batting source of big concern

Ken Borland

The Highveld Lions batting is the major worry for stand-in coach Wandile Gwavu (above) ahead of their Fous-Day Domestic Series match against the Knights in Kimberley from today, but the home side’s coach warns that the defending champions cannot be underestimated even though the gap between the two teams is more than 10 points.

Gwavu is also sweating over the fitness of all-rounder Wiaan Mulder, while fellow paceman Beuran Hendricks has already been ruled out of the Kimberley trip. They were both injured on the final day of the Lions’ tight loss to the Warriors last week.

“Losing was massively disappointing, we just couldn’t get enough runs on the board. So it’s about time our batsmen stand up and score some big runs. Everyone knows we have some big names in our line-up, who are capable of scoring some big hundreds.

“So I’m looking forward to a decent pitch in Kimberley. I’ve seen the Knights scoring runs there and hopefully we can do the same. It will be tough, but I have full faith in our guys,” Gwavu said of his team that has not managed to score more than 217 in their four innings thus far.

“The Lions are the defending champions and you cannot underestimate them one bit. They have a very good squad, although they have played two low-scoring games, so it will be interesting to see how far they can stretch as a squad for the whole four days. That’s definitely something we have a close eye on. But we take nothing away from them, we know their pedigree as the champions,” Knights coach Alan Kruger said.

Leaders Titans are less than a point ahead of the Knights, and they take on the Warriors in Port Elizabeth.

Coach Mark Boucher says he is happy with the way his squad are performing, even though they were left hanging on for the draw against the Cape Cobras in Benoni. But that was almost entirely down to the brilliance of Kyle Verreynne, who scored centuries in both Cobras innings to become just the second wicketkeeper after Andrew Puttick in 2014/15 to achieve the feat in franchise cricket. The legendary Johnny Waite, for Transvaal, and Ryan Canning for Boland in the semipro competition are the only others to do it in South African firstclass cricket.

The Cobras travel to Pietermaritzburg to take on the Dolphins in the week’s other fixture.