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All roads lead to a sold-out Newlands for the much-anticipated SA20 Season two final between Sunrisers Eastern Cape and Durban's Super Giants on Saturday.
It is a rematch of qualifier one played earlier this week in Cape Town, which the Sunrisers comfortably won by 51 runs, to book their second successive appearance in the grand showpiece. The Super Giants, meanwhile, had to take the long route up to Johannesburg to face the Joburg Super Kings in Qualifier two at the Wanderers. Keshav Maharaj's team raised themselves for the occasion, defeating the Super Kings by 69 runs to secure their first-ever Betway SA20 final appearance. The Sunrisers have the experience of winning last year's final before a packed Wanderers Stadium and captain Aiden Markram believes this along with the recuperation gained this week will benefit his team on Saturday. "We have had a couple of days off to recharge and rest and had a nice training session on Friday to get the energy back up," said Markram as quoted by an SA20 press release. "We are looking forward to tomorrow. It is going to be a fantastic day and I am sure when we rock up we will be filled with plenty of energy and plenty of excitement." "It can only help those that were involved last year and ultimately the occasion is what it is on the side. We will try to put our best foot forward and see where it takes us from a result point of view," concluded the skipper. The Super Giants, meanwhile, will be battle-hardened after their extra match and will certainly take the confidence of having bounced back at the 'Bullring' into the showdown with the Sunrisers. "We are excited and energetic. The guys are still buzzing from last night. It was a brilliant clinical performance for us after a bit of a little wobble along the way," said captain Maharaj. "For us it's all about the execution and having clarity in regards to our gameplans and hopefully it is enough to triumph the Sunrisers tomorrow." Maharaj also believes they have learnt valuable lessons from their defeat to the Sunrisers earlier in the week and will hopefully be able to implement the changes. "I think we need to apply ourselves and stay true to our plans. We deviated a bit from that, especially in terms of a batting point of view," the DSG skipper said. "We need to dust ourselves off and learn from our mistakes," he concluded. The final is being billed as a high-octane clash between Sunrisers' impressive seam bowling unit going head-to-head with the Super Giants' much-vaunted batters. The Sunrisers boast three fast bowlers atop the SA20 wicket-takers leaderboard in Ottniel Baartman (16), Daniel Worrall (15) and Marco Jansen (15). The Super Giants, meanwhile, have the explosive Heinrich Klaasen (447 runs with a strike rate of 208.88) and Matthew Breetzke (398 with a strike rate of 142.14) listed in the top four of the batting run-scoring charts. (ANI)
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