We will find out who the MI Cape Town side will face in the SA20 2025 final on Thursday when Qualifier 2 of the competition takes place at Centurion as the Paarl Royals take on the defending champions Sunrisers Eastern Cape.
The Royals have already messed up once chance to make the final of the competition and will be eager to make full use of this second opportunity while the Eastern Cape will look to continue their momentum and reach the title showdown again.
Paarl Royals
I don’t think too many people were surprised that the Paarl Royals lost to the MI Cape Town outfit in Qualifier 1 on Tuesday. It looked a bad matchup at this stage of the season for a while and that is exactly how it played out. The problem the Royals have now is I always think this particular match in a season is a no win situation for the team who lose that first qualifier. Everyone expects the Royals to get to the final based on their strength of their regular season but they go into the match off the back of a defeat.
Clearly if Paarl are going to win this match then their bowlers need to deliver much more than what they did in Gqeberha on Tuesday. The positive for them is you would imagine this match will be on the same pitch which was used for the Eliminator on Wednesday and therefore a used pitch brings the Paarl spinners right into play. Paarl will also need one or two of their gun batters to fire but that isn’t beyond the realms of possibility.
Sunrisers Eastern Cape
The Sunrisers Eastern Cape are in a familiar position in that they are excelling in knockout cricket once again. The champions of the first two seasons haven’t had their best stuff with them throughout this campaign but when the important stuff has come along they have delivered the goods and even though they have to back up a win the next day, the Eastern Cape will go into this match with some momentum and feeling good about their chances.
Sunrisers still rely on their bowlers to get the job done. There is nothing wrong with that at this time of the season but they have a couple of gun batters who if they come off it will make things a whole lot easier for them. Sunrisers did win their last match against the Royals but that was a dead rubber for Paarl so it will be interesting to see how much confidence they can take from that. The one thing they can grasp at is the fact they played the Eliminator on this ground and potentially on this wicket.
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Key Players
Mujeeb Ur Rahman could be a big player for the Paarl Royals on this surface. If he can get into the middle order of the Sunrisers then it would be a huge part in the Royals pushing on and having a chance to make the final.
Aiden Markram might become more of a growing influence on this match. He has really come to the party with the bat in recent times but on a used pitch he could be just as important with the ball in hand too as he looks to lead the Sunrisers to a third straight final.
Betting
I think we are going to see a very competitive match here between two sides whose bowling units can stand up to the scrutiny of most teams in the competition. This match looks like it is going to be on the same pitch as we played on for the Eliminator on Wednesday. There certainly wasn’t another one being prepared anyway and that wicket just held up a bit for the spinners and there is no shortage of spin in these two sides so I’m not convinced we are going to get a high scoring match.
The wickets have played better in Centurion the longer the competition has gone on but that wasn’t really the case on Wednesday and in truth it shouldn’t play any better here having had 40 overs on it. You wouldn’t say either of these teams are brilliant against spin and when you factor in the knockout nature of the match and the season being on the line I fancy we’ll see a competitive game rather than a blast everything out of the ground sort of match. I’m happy to ride both bowling units to get the job done and go with under 343.5 runs here.
Tips
Back Under 343.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
