Warriors eye Dolphins win in busy schedule
THERE will be no waiting around for the dust to settle as the Warriors rush headlong into a crammed stretch of six Ram Slam T20 Challenge matches in 12 days, starting in Durban tonight.
Having lost their opening two fixtures of the campaign, last season’s finalists will be desperate for a win over the Dolphins at Kingsmead from 6pm.
After that, they have four more away games during a mini, whirlwind tour of the country, which will take them to Bloemfontein (Knights), Cape Town (Lions), Paarl (Cobras) and Benoni (Titans) before heading back to Port Elizabeth for a double-header day at St George’s next Sunday, where they play the Dolphins again. The Warriors know that one win could trigger a run of victories similar to what they enjoyed during last season’s campaign.
“That’s the plan,” Warriors coach Malibongwe Maketa said. “We know how everything can become a habit.
“We didn’t start well and luckily we have had a week in between games.
“Now it just boils down to our mental game – how mentally strong are we, especially now, starting with this game away in Durban.
“If we go out and win that, we know we can get on a roll and come back close to securing that semifinal spot – and that’s our immediate goal.”
The challenge Jon-Jon Smuts’s Warriors face is that with every bend they take, there are opposing Proteas players waiting to test their skills.
It is something the team will need to get used to, deal with and handle sooner, rather than later.
“If you look at scores and you look at other teams, you can see the Proteas have come through and dominated games,” Maketa said.
“The way we have started has been disappointing. In saying that, we have really put in everything that we have, and we are not going to stop fighting.
“We do believe we are good enough to get there and play in the final on December 16.”
A lack of sufficient runs has proved the downfall for the Warriors so far. Even if Smuts and Gihahn Cloete have set them off on good starts, they have lost wickets in clusters.
“We haven’t come up with partnerships and it is something that worked well for us last season,” Maketa said.
“We had good partnerships throughout. I think our No 8 batsman only faced 56 balls the whole of the last campaign. We now rely on them to get partnerships at the back end.
“But we have faith in what we have and know that it is going to click. “[Today] is a great time to start.” Maketa only has four weeks remaining with the Warriors before he takes up his new role as assistant coach to Ottis Gibson in the Proteas setup.
He said he was not willing to throw in the towel after two losses and would like to finish his tenure with a flurry of wins.
“I’m not the kind of person who is going to sit back and take a loss. I hate losing. I’d like to finish off on a high.
“This group of players has worked hard over the past 2½ seasons to make sure that this season would be our peak season to go out there and win a trophy,” he said.
“We still have eight games in the competition, so there is a chance to win it. That remains our goal.” The Warriors squad: Colin Ackermann, Andrew Birch, Gihahn Cloete, Colin Ingram, Christiaan Jonker, Sisanda Magala, Lesiba Ngoepe, Anrich Nortje, Jerry Nqolo, Solo Nqweni, Jon-Jon Smuts (c), Kelly Smuts, Yaseen Vallie, Basheer Walters.