Sunrisers Eastern Cape v Pretoria Capitals – Preview

Out of six teams in the SA20 league, four of those who have played five games are halfway through the tournament. Then on Monday 22 January will see Sunrisers Eastern Cape and Pretoria Capitals battle out to join the entire teams for five games. Last season, these two clubs battled out in the final with the Sunrisers winning the inaugural tournament. So, it is a revenge game at stake and St George’s Park will see a hell of a good battle.

Sunrisers are starting to accelerate to the right path now. After having a bad start without a win in the first two matches, Sunrisers regrouped and won the following two matches to jump into third position overall. The Champions are coming off a very good contest from Saturday, where they managed to get revenge over the Durban Super Giants away from home. Chasing a total of 159 on a favorable batting pitch of Kingsmead Stadium, Sunrisers batting order was composed throughout the chase to record a five-wicket win with four balls to spare. Tristan Stubbs was the instrumental with the bat providing a knock of 66 not out. There have been some talks regarding Stubbs’s form but on the day, he proved the naysayers wrong.

For Stubbs, It was very crucial to play a pivotal innings to regain confidence moving forward in the competition. In the last clash between two sides, Stubbs was excellent scoring 55 runs on the day, and is expected to carry his team even this time around. But the Champions are not short of the top performers with the bat. Aiden Markram, a leader in the team is dangerous if you let him explode and can hurt any side. Then a young sensation Jordan Hermann, who scored a century in a victory over Joburg Super Kings has shown exceptional skills and is set to dominate the game in the future. Even the Proteas legend Ab De Villiers has tipped Hermann as one of the future talents. So that shows how big his potential is.

Meanwhile, the Capitals are in a stage to bother now. They are sitting bottom of the league table with one win in four matches. As the games are approaching the halfway stage, the Capitals have to turn things around. A win today will elevate them closer to those goals. After getting a big win against Super Giants where they posted 204 runs on the scoreboard, they were expectations that things would head in the right direction. In that victory, Will Jacks was a standout performer scoring a century. But instead of building from that foundation, the Capitals fell back into the mud again.

A loss in the hands of Joburg Super Kings over the weekend meant they have to work hard again. The most worrying factor or huge setback has to be the lack of consistency in the batting top three. Neither of them has come to the party and performed. Against Super Kings, they were bailed out by Kyle Verreyne with the 72-run effort which in the end fell into the losing end. Their star batman has to be Jacks with 163 runs at a strike rate of 196.42. The 25-year-old will be hoping to be marvelous with the bat going forward.

What To Expect

The ground is not the highest-scoring ground with an average run score is 174 in the past five matches. In those, three times a team bowling second has won the match. The highest score chased down is 154. So, the best option is to bowl when winning the toss.

Prediction

Best Bet: Sunrisers to win at 1.74