Young Warriors get chance to impress
Sunfoil season starts without county players
THE Warriors have an ideal chance to test their strength in depth when their seasonopening Sunfoil Series clash gets under way against the Highveld Lions in Johannesburg today.
Coach Malibongwe Maketa has drawn the positives from what is not an ideal situation for the Eastern Cape franchise that sees them without their Kolpak players for the opening salvos of the season.
Colin Ingram, Colin Ackermann and Simon Harmer are all still with their counties in England.
“This is supposed to be our big Sunfoil Series season,” Maketa said yesterday.
“But the way the fixtures have panned out, with the lack of availability of our Kolpak players [because of the early start to the season], is unfortunate.
“We were looking at a really, really strong team for the entire campaign. We had built up for this season.
“We needed Colin Ingram and Colin Ackermann in our top six to compete from the word go.”
Maketa said this did, however, present the younger and less experienced players in the squad with a chance to perform.
“With them coming late, it does give an opportunity to our younger players to try and prove they are worthy of batting in our top order and then when the Kolpak guys return, hopefully we will have a good problem for selection,” Maketa said.
Jon-Jon Smuts will captain the team in all three formats of the game this season. He shared the role with Harmer last season.
“It’s a change we are bringing in this season. We are going back to one captain,” Maketa said.
“With Simon having to come in late and also missing a few games we thought it better to look for one captain and see if one voice would give us continuity.”
The Lions are rolling out the big guns in their opening fixture and will rely on the likes of Kagiso Rabada, captain Stephen Cook, Reeza Hendricks and Dwaine Pretorius to try to secure them victory. Again, Maketa saw the positives in facing a strong opposition.
“With the national players available it makes them really strong. But we want to test ourselves against the national players to see where our guys are and in what areas we need to improve.”
All the Warriors batsmen displayed some good form in their preseason warm-up matches against the Cobras.
And it will be important for the Warriors to build substantial first innings totals if they are to compete in the Sunfoil Series.
David White and Eddie Moore are the likely openers.
With Basheer Walters not in the squad for this match, the job of striking up front with the ball will once again fall on the shoulders of Andrew Birch, Sisanda Magala and Anrich Nortje.