The opening match of the third SA20 campaign takes place on Thursday and it sees the defending champions Sunrisers Eastern Cape beginning their title defence against the tournament favourites MI Cape Town.
Sunrisers Eastern Cape will be looking to make the most of home advantage and get their defence off to the best possible start while after finishing bottom in both seasons so far, MI Cape Town will want a good beginning to put that behind them.
Sunrisers Eastern Cape
Every now and again in franchise competitions you just get teams who aren’t necessarily anything special in terms of pyrotechnics or standout individual quality but where everyone knows their roles and perform it to the best of their ability. We have the Perth Scorchers and Sydney Sixers in the Big Bash League, the Guyana Amazon Warriors in the CPL and the Gulf Giants in the ILT20 and we can add the Sunrisers Eastern Cape to the list given that they are the only team to have won this competition so far.
The key to the success of the Sunrisers so far, as it generally is for most successful teams in franchise tournaments, is their bowling unit. They might not have standout stars like other attacks but they have a good mix throughout the 20 overs and get powerplay wickets which is essential. They also have a key death bowler. That takes the pressure off of the batters and as a result more often than not they put up solid totals. It is a basic formula but a successful one.
MI Cape Town
On the flip side of all that, you also get star-studded teams in franchise competitions who should have the ability to dominate the others in that tournament but the individuals within that setup leave it to each other to deliver the goods and they find that nobody does and they end up in a mess. There is no way MI Cape Town should be finishing bottom of the table in any season let alone both of them so far so for that to have been the case is incredible really.
There is still a huge amount of star quality within this MI Cape Town side and they really need those stars to come to the party here. The one thing you would say is there is a bit more firepower with the ball rather than just relying on a couple of key individuals and the addition of Reeza Hendricks at the top of the order gives the bigger hitters someone to bat around but until we see them show some consistency as an XI there are always going to be doubts over their credentials.
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Key Players
The Sunrisers Eastern Cape haven’t done a lot of work to their squad in the off-season because they didn’t need to but they did add David Bedingham and that looks like a very shrewd piece of business. He’ll want a good start on debut here.
All eyes will be on Rashid Khan in this match. He is the captain of this team and as a result of that he will be looked upon to manage the big profiles within the XI. His bowling is usually a cheat code and he’ll need a good spell here you would imagine.
Betting
This should be a good way to start the season and while I would expect there to be improvement in the MI Cape Town side they have faced the Sunrisers Eastern Cape on four occasions and haven’t got over the line against them yet. Admittedly all of the matches have been fairly tight, and there is nothing to suggest that this will be a great deal different, but in a way that is a positive for the defending champions as they know how to hold their nerve in that situation.
Although I do think MI Cape Town will improve this season, it might take them a match or two for everyone to get up to speed and I’m not sure that will be the case with Sunrisers Eastern Cape for whom they just need to pick up where they left off. Death bowling and the access to a finisher with the bat could just be the difference in a match which could go either way. You can’t always bet on history but I think it carries enough relevance to side with it here.
Tips
Back Sunrisers Eastern Cape to beat MI Cape Town for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with William Hill
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