The first set of matches in the SA20 2024 season concludes on Friday when the two teams yet to get their campaign underway do so when two of the top four from last term meet when the Paarl Royals host the Pretoria Capitals.
These two met in the semi-final of the competition in the first season of the tournament and the Royals were no match for the Capitals so the home side will be looking for a bit of revenge against the team who topped the table last season.
Paarl Royals
The Paarl Royals couldn’t get anything going last season. When you looked at the squads going into the campaign they looked as strong as anyone but it soon became apparent that they didn’t have enough batters in form and they struggled as a result of that. In an 11 match season to have just one player score more than 230 runs in the competition highlights exactly where they struggled and they’ll be looking for more batting contributions than from just Jos Buttler this term.
The immediate problem going into this campaign is that Buttler has been out of form recently and if he doesn’t fire then you do worry for the Royals’ batting even allowing for the reinforcements that have been drafted in to help. Where the Royals do look good is with the ball. They have plenty of pace in their seam department and they have a couple of spinners who should be very good when conditions suit them. After the struggles of last season you’d think the Royals need a positive start here.
Pretoria Capitals
The Pretoria Capitals were comfortably the best team in the league for the first part of the campaign last term but that all counted for nothing when they came up short in the final. That near-miss will certainly act as motivation for them to deliver the goods this time around. You do get the feeling that the early stages of this season could be telling. Sometimes when a team loses a final there is a bit of a hangover carried into the following campaign so it will be interesting to see how the Capitals fare here.
The success of the Capitals last season was their opening partnership. They blitzed the ball to all parts so they will be hoping that they get off to quick starts once again this season. Five batters hit more than 200 runs last season and they also had five bowlers who made it into double figures in the wicket column so this was a team who all contributed throughout the campaign. If anything the Capitals might be a quality bowler light.
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Key Players
Jos Buttler was the leading run scorer in the competition last season and the Paarl Royals would love the England captain to arrive in that form rather than the form he was in at the recent World Cup in India. They’re a chance if he is.
Will Jacks might well have been the leading run scorer last season had he not left for international duty halfway through the competition. He has been in great touch for England recently and arrives here as a key man for the Capitals.
Betting
Generally the message and vibe around this competition has been to showcase cricket in a good light and as such we usually get some decent batting tracks, especially early in a season, and I’m not expecting too much different in this match and as such this match might be higher scoring than the lines for the match would suggest, especially with the firepower these two sides offer up with the bat, particularly at the top of the innings.
I might have changed my mind if Anrich Nortje was fit for this one but he isn’t and while Hardus Viljoen is an adequate replacement I wouldn’t be surprised if the Capitals need a match or two to work on their combinations because Viljoen is more a middle overs bowler rather than where Nortje looks to bowl. The reverse meeting here last year had 320 runs in it when Will Jacks was out for four and Phil Salt had left. I think there is room for more here and I like over 318.5 runs as a result.
Tips
Back Over 318.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
