Two sides who lost their opening matches of the Mzansi Super League meet in the one match in the competition on Tuesday when the Paarl Rocks play host to the Jozi Stars at Boland Park in Paarl. Both teams will know the need to win here so expect this to be a competitive outing.
With only 10 fixtures at this stage of the season to lose the opening two games would pile the pressure on the side who do lose here so with that in mind we are near enough in must-win territory here.
Paarl Rocks
To be fair to the Paarl Rocks they gave it a right good go against the Tshwane Spartans in their first game and probably should have sneaked a victory. Credit must go to Andrew Birch who held his nerve for the Spartans but Paarl will still be gutted to have lost. They won’t need to search too hard to see where they went wrong though. They surrendered plenty of runs in the field and that can’t keep happening.
On the flip side of that Paarl Rocks put up over 200 runs and were missing two of three of their international batsmen so when they have them back, which may well be in this match, then they are going to look very strong with the willow. If they can then perform better with the ball on top of that there are chances of success for the Paarl side.
Jozi Stars
There was much fanfare around the Jozi Stars heading into the tournament but the hype turned into a damp squib very quickly when they put up a below par effort in their opening loss to the Nelson Mandela Bay Giants in their first game. They weren’t really at it in any discipline and need a massive improvement if they are going to be competitive in the tournament.
Although they have a huge hitting batting line up, the Stars never got going with the bat in their first game. You wouldn’t think they would fail too often in that facet of the game but they could do with a decent showing here just for peace of mind as much as anything else. They should get the wicket for that so there can be no excuses here.
Team News
The international players are slowly coming back now so Paarl Rocks will hope to have Faf du Plessis, Tabraiz Shamsi and Aiden Markram back for this match. Bjorn Fortuin went around the park in the first game and could be left out here.
If international players return for the Jozi Stars then they could have Kagiso Rabada and Reeza Hendricks back for this contest. Dwaine Pretorius is another who could come into the side after returning from Australia.
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Betting
We saw a high scoring match in the first game of the tournament here and I’m not seeing anything to suggest we are not going to see another one here. Both sides have plenty of batting in their ranks and we’ve seen the Paarl Rocks attack go around the park in that opening game.
We never really saw the best of the Jozi Stars in their first match, especially with the bat but the likes of Chris Gayle isn’t going to fail too often. With some international players back I’m expecting a stronger showing from them and with that in mind, given how the wicket here played in the first game, I think over 38.5 boundaries can land here. We saw 52 in the first match on this ground so we only need 3/4 of that here.
Tips
Back Over 38.5 boundaries for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
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