Davids praises Rocks’ character
zaahier.adams@inl.co.za PAARL ROCKS captain Henry Davids believes there are a lot of positives to take out of his team’s one-run defeat in their Mzansi Super League opener on Sunday.
The Rocks certainly don’t have much time to bemoan their luck against the Tshwane Spartans, for they are in action again today.
The visitors are once again from up north, with the Josi Stars heading to Boland Park (7pm start).
“The way we played there were a lot of positives. We have to execute better with the ball. I thought the batting was fairly good. It is not the end of the world, and if we can carry on with the momentum we gained, we can only go from strength-tostrength,” Davids said.
Both teams will be a missing a couple of leading players for the contest with West Indian duo Dwayne Bravo (Paarl Rocks) and Chris Gayle (Jozi Stars) along with Cameron Delport (Rocks) having left to the United Arab Emirates for the Abu Dhabi T10 competition.
The Rocks have a ready-made replacement for Bravo with former Proteas T20 all-rounder Dawid Wiese expected to debut for his new franchise.
Equally, the home team are blessed with an abundance of hard-hitting batsmen who could be promoted up the order to fill in for Delport.
Wiese’s prowess with the ball will be particularly appreciated. The Rocks allowed the Spartan openers Gihahn Cloete and Theunis de Bruyn to run away with proceedings until Bravo (3/31) was introduced into the attack to stem the tide with his mixture of slower balls and cutters.
Wiese is equally adept at taking the pace off the ball and Davids will certainly be calling on the 33-yearold’s experience.
“We can definitely look at our start with the ball. We didn’t hit our straps. We were way too full. We were always on the back foot. They were almost 60 with no wickets down within the powerplay. Ideally we want to take a couple of wickets and not go at 10s/11s/12s,” Davids said.
“Something we can look at is the lengths we bowl, especially on our wicket. We know the conditions. As soon as we started hitting those lengths, it was a little bit tougher to get away. The character we showed to get back in the game and to finally fall one run short was very impressive.”
The match will also be opportunity for Boland Park to showcase new floodlights which were installed recently.
Both the Rocks and the Stars will be given a bit of a breather after tonight’s match, with the Rocks back in action on Sunday when they play in their first away encounter of the tournament against the Cape Town Blitz at Newlands.
Likewise, the Stars will host the Blitz on Saturday at the Wanderers.