Toyana tilts at a Lions turnaround
COACH: WE CANNOT AFFORD TO PUT A FOOT WRONG Now the pressure is off, he is hoping his men put it together.
The Highveld Lions have some top-class T20 matchwinners in their ranks and coach Geoff Toyana is turning to them to make the difference as his side find themselves in a crunch position going into their RamSlam T20 Challenge match against the Knights in Bloemfontein tonight.
It’s been a highly frustrating week for the Lions as they threw away matchwinning positions against the Cape Cobras and the Warriors and then saw their midweek game against the Titans washed out at the Wanderers. It has meant they have slipped down to fifth spot and out of the semifinal places, and Toyana wants the turnaround to start against the Knights.
All-rounder Dwaine Pretorius is set to return to the starting line-up, joining fellow Proteas in Reeza Hendricks, Mangaliso Mosehle, Hardus Viljoen, Kagiso Rabada and Aaron Phangiso.
“There’s always pressure, but if you look at the league, there’s a bottleneck between positions two and six, so there’s even more pressure to get ourselves in a good position. The key is to get on the park and do justice to ourselves.
“I really feel like we’ve played good cricket and got into dominant positions from which we should have won. But we should have bowled better in Cape Town, our batsmen have played some crazy cricket too and in every game we’ve dropped at least one catch. We’re now at a critical stage of the competition and we can’t afford to put a foot wrong.
“It’s about handling the pressure, we get ourselves in good positions but then we don’t make the correct decision. The key is to make the right decisions under pressure and experience is vital for that. We have a group of players who have played international cricket and they should add value in those tight positions,” Toyana said yesterday.
In Benoni, another Proteas all-rounder, Chris Morris, should return to the Titans XI for their match against the Warriors at Willowmoore Park, where their previous game was also washed out last week.
Having not got on the field for nearly two weeks now, the key for the Titans will be to find the same intensity and accuracy they had in winning their first four games.
The second-placed Cape Cobras travel to Durban to take on the Dolphins in their return fixture, having been well-beaten by the KwaZulu-Natal side in their opening match.