Sunrisers Eastern Cape head coach Adrian Birrell said he was expecting to see even more fire and passion from his players when the third instalment of the much-anticipated Betway SA20 gets under way this week.
The two-time defending champions start their campaign with a clash on home soil against MI Cape Town at St George's Park on Thursday (from 5.30pm).
They have again recruited smartly for this edition, bringing in Zak Crawley and David Bedingham (wild card) while they also facilitated the return of Roelof van der Merwe and Craig Overton, who were missing from last season's roster.
At the player auction, the Orange Army added just three names to their list when they acquired the services of Richard Gleeson, Okuhle Cele and Daniel Smith, who was their rookie draft pick for this season.
Having shut out their other five franchise opponents to the title in the first two editions, Birrell said that while they were proud of their success, there was room for improvement in their quest for an unprecedented treble of SA20 crowns.
“We can always improve,” Birrell said.
“We have a good team this year, we have been preparing well. We have had a good team in the last two seasons but I think we have recruited well and I am very happy with the team we have.
“So, hopefully, the players can run into form and we can compete again in the back end of the tournament,” he told HeraldLIVE.
Asked what they needed to do better than in previous years, Birrell said the team and their results over the last two editions had shown their methods are sound and they will continue in that vein.
“We will have to match the passion and will to win that we have had in abundance in the past two seasons, we will have to match our abilities in the field, because I felt that we were the best fielding side in the competition.
“We have to continue to execute our skills with the ball and getting runs on the board with the bat, I think we are capable, there are strong teams in the competition, so we can only do what we can control, which is to prepare well and work on a solid game plan for the conditions and the opposition,” he said.
With the return of their Proteas internationals after the second Test against Pakistan this week, Birrell said the two warm-up matches — on Saturday and another scheduled for Monday evening, were merely an exercise for players to reacquaint themselves with conditions in Gqeberha.
“We've got four internationals who will join us, so we have a pretty good idea of who our starting XI will be. These matches won't have much bearing on who starts that opening encounter.
“In the first season, we squeezed into the playoffs, but in the second season we finished as group stage winners, we wanted to win the group and then win the first playoff match to go straight to the final.
“You don't know how things will unfold or where we will be, but the only thing we can do is prepare well, every team will be gunning for us and they will think that beating the Sunrisers will show them that they too can be competitive and potentially win the tournament,” Birrell said.
HeraldLIVE
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