EP, Border all set for blockbuster T20 clash

A potential blockbuster finish to the weekend’s Africa Cup T20 competition pool C is on the cards with fierce rivals Border and Eastern Province to close out the action on Sunday.

The showdown will be the last of 10 matches played over three days, with only the top team in the pool of five progressing to the finals weekend.

“Hopefully by then [the final match] we will have qualified,” Border coach Frank Plaatjes quipped.

“But it is always a great derby against them. Being in the same franchise, it always makes it interesting as the players enjoy the bragging rights.

“The players are looking forward to it, especially the fact that we have got Bash [Basheer Walters] and Gihahn [Cloete], who were with EP last year in the Border team, so there will be a bit of a niggle.”

Border will be desperate to make the finals weekend, as rain put paid to their chances in two of the three previous editions of the Africa Cup, while in the first, in 2015, Border were just not good enough.

So should they make it through this weekend it would be their first appearance at the finals weekend.

EP, by comparison, are no strangers to the finals weekend, having claimed the title in 2016 after they comfortably defeated Northern Cape by 31 runs.

They will be eager to reclaim the cup in 2018 after failing to progress from their pool in 2017.

Border will open their campaign with one game on Friday afternoon against Namibia, before playing two matches on Saturday, against Mpumalanga in the morning and Kenya in the afternoon, and ending off with the provincial derby on Sunday afternoon.

“We are going to take it game by game this weekend and the first match is against Namibia, so that is our full focus now,” Plaatjes said.

EP play twice on Friday, against Namibia in the morning and Mpumalanga in the afternoon, before facing Kenya on Saturday, and finishing off with the Border match on Sunday.