Warriors need good start to T20 Challenge
THE Ram Slam T20 Challenge returns to South African domestic cricket, as the Warriors and Knights get the ball rolling at St George’s Park tonight (6pm).
There has been much hype around the tournament, and adding to the excitement for St George’s fans is the added value of brand new floodlights, a new digital scoreboard, a R2-million catching competition and massively discounted ground entry prices.
The action at ground zero will be even more intense, with the Warriors desperate to go one better than their runners-up spot last season.
To do that, they will need to win their home games, a fact captain Jon-Jon Smuts stressed at a media conference this week.
The Knights will be no pushovers and boast six players with Proteas colours within their ranks, compared to the Warriors’ three in Jon-Jon Smuts, Colin Ingram and Simon Harmer.
But coach Malibongwe Maketa is not reading too much into national representation.
“For us, it’s pretty much the same. People may look at our squad and say we are not gaining any Proteas players.
“But we have Jon-Jon. He’s played at that level and we believe he’s good enough to compete at that level,” Maketa said this week.
“On top of that, we have other players who we believe are also good enough to play at that level.
“We are grooming them, or getting them ready to compete for World Cup spots.
“For us, we are quite clear that we want to go out there and really compete well and judge where we are by playing Proteas players.”
The Warriors lost a nail-biting final to the Titans in the 2016-2017 season.
It was a bitter blow, especially after having played so well during the group and eliminator stages.
But Maketa said the squad were not dwelling on the past but rather looking forward to a new campaign.
“Last year is history now. We’re just focusing on each game at a time and not looking too far ahead in terms of how we go about this competition.
“We’ve always been a simple side that take it game by game, and it’s going to be no different now.
“We’re starting from scratch and we want to make sure we execute our skills from game one.”
Skipper Smuts will have a massive role to play with both bat and ball as will Ingram, while Christiaan Jonker returns to the squad after missing out through injury for a large part of last season.
The squads are: Warriors: Colin Ackermann, Andrew Birch, Gihahn Cloete, Aya Gqamane, Simon Harmer, Colin Ingram, Christiaan Jonker, Sisanda Magala, Anrich Nortje, Jerry Nqolo, Solo Nqweni, Jon-Jon Smuts, Kelly Smuts, Basheer Walters Knights: Theunis de Bruyn (capt), Marchant de Lange, Andries Gous (wk), Eddie Leie, Patrick Kruger, Ryan McLaren, David Miller, Grant Mokoena, Tshepo Ntuli, Duanne Olivier, Keegan Petersen, Aubrey Swanepoel, Shadley van Schalkwyk