WHAT a privilege for sport in the Eastern Cape to currently host the Cricket South Africa T20 Challenge at St George’s Park, although we would have preferred a better performance by the home team.
The local supporters received a mixed bag from the Warriors – at times they played very well and at other stages they were woeful.
One expected better from them at their home ground but the bowling and decision making were serious problems at times.
On many occasions, the bowlers were struggling to find the right line and length with their deliveries and that made it difficult to put the opposition under pressure.
There are many young players in the side and Sinethemba Qeshile is still trying to find his feet in the captaincy role.
The players will learn a lot from the T20 Challenge and will hopefully not repeat the same mistakes.
For the coaching staff, it is important to find the best combination for their bowling attack for T20 matches. The Warriors couldn’t settle on an attack they were comfortable with.
They were missing the injured Anrich Nortje, while Marco Jansen and Glenton Stuurman are on duty for the national side in New Zealand.
In their absence there was a lot of chopping and changing among the bowlers and it didn’t help that many of the other teams surprisingly adapted quicker and better to the conditions than the home side.
There were fine individual performances though from the Warriors and the young batsman, Trevor Stubbs, was the leader with some sensational hitting.
The experienced Jon-Jon Smuts again showed what a valuable player he is for the Warriors and Wihan Lubbe also had a fine tournament.
It has been a tough, long tournament with match after match but the local spectators can look forward to the Warriors taking on the Dragons today.
Then it is the semi-finals on Friday and the final on Sunday.
More good news for the local fans is the recent announcement that the Proteas and Bangladesh will start a test match at St George’s Park on April 8.
This is something to look forward to, although the embarrassing defeat in the first test in New Zealand has somewhat dimmed the excitement for the Proteas’ visit.
Let’s hope they pull up their socks and show drastic improvement when the second test starts in Christchurch on Friday.
Warriors top T20 performers
(Rating out of 10)
1. Tristan Stubbs, 8.00
2. Jon-Jon Smuts, 7.33
3. Wihan Lubbe, 6.83
4. Lizo Makhosi, 6.25
5. Mthiwekhaya Nabe, 6.00
5. Diego Rosier, 6.00
Fixtures
Today: WP vs Dolphins, Warriors v Dragons
Friday: Semi-final 1 and 2
Sunday: Final
