Agony and ecstasy to the extreme are the emotions Sunrisers Eastern Cape fans have endured during the ongoing SA20 campaign.
They went from thrilling their legion of Orange Army supporters with three straight victories at a St George’s Park venue bursting at the seams and consumed by a cacophony of noise to four thumping losses away from home where they weren’t anywhere near the races.
Unfortunately for their faithful fans, the defending champion Sunrisers will not contest Qualifier 1 at their Gqeberha fortress on Tuesday.
A crushing 10-wicket loss to MI Cape Town at Newlands on Wednesday night put paid to any chance of that happening, with the Western Cape team grabbing the berth themselves to face the Paarl Royals.
The reward for the winner of that tie is a straight passage to the final in Johannesburg next Saturday.
No such luck for the Sunrisers.
Winning only one game on the road means they now have to compete to qualify for either the third or fourth spot with the Joburg Super Kings and Pretoria Capitals hovering around them.
Much will depend on whether the Capitals keep themselves in contention by beating MI Cape Town in Centurion on Friday.
A Capitals win would leave the Sunrisers needing to beat the table-topping Paarl Royals at St George’s Park in their final pool game on Saturday (1pm).
A Capitals loss would render the result in Gqeberha meaningless as the Sunrisers would qualify for Wednesday’s eliminator in Centurion along with the Joburg Super Kings.
But, the Sunrisers will want to win that game no matter what the permutations to gain some momentum at home before travelling to Centurion for the playoff.
To do that, they are going to have to make some runs.
Their last two games produced 118 and 107.
You are not going to win too many games with such totals.
There needs to be some serious application from their top order for them to entertain thoughts of competing for a win.
The batters must take responsibility.
Ultimately, the continuous loss of wickets in the power plays has killed them, mostly away from home.
If they don’t remedy that, it’s unlikely they will get to bask in the glory of a three-peat of titles.
Sunriser batsman David Bedingham, who was the one shining light in the loss on Wednesday, scoring a run-a-ball 45, believes they can turn the corner and push for that third crown.
“We are in third place, so we haven’t done that badly,” Bedingham said in the post-match presser.
“But when we’ve lost, we’ve lost quite badly and that’s probably the nature of the game.
“We’d obviously like to be a lot more consistent and come the last [pool] game we can hopefully find some consistency leading into the playoffs.
“We have experience and a lot of big players to put matters right.
“We are three games away from a final, so if we can get on a run we can leave these three or four games behind and then hopefully go on and win the whole thing.”
The Herald
Sunrisers batters can front up against Royals — Bedingham
‘We have experience and a lot of big players to put matters right’
Image: SPORTZPICS/SA20
Agony and ecstasy to the extreme are the emotions Sunrisers Eastern Cape fans have endured during the ongoing SA20 campaign.
They went from thrilling their legion of Orange Army supporters with three straight victories at a St George’s Park venue bursting at the seams and consumed by a cacophony of noise to four thumping losses away from home where they weren’t anywhere near the races.
Unfortunately for their faithful fans, the defending champion Sunrisers will not contest Qualifier 1 at their Gqeberha fortress on Tuesday.
A crushing 10-wicket loss to MI Cape Town at Newlands on Wednesday night put paid to any chance of that happening, with the Western Cape team grabbing the berth themselves to face the Paarl Royals.
The reward for the winner of that tie is a straight passage to the final in Johannesburg next Saturday.
No such luck for the Sunrisers.
Winning only one game on the road means they now have to compete to qualify for either the third or fourth spot with the Joburg Super Kings and Pretoria Capitals hovering around them.
Much will depend on whether the Capitals keep themselves in contention by beating MI Cape Town in Centurion on Friday.
A Capitals win would leave the Sunrisers needing to beat the table-topping Paarl Royals at St George’s Park in their final pool game on Saturday (1pm).
A Capitals loss would render the result in Gqeberha meaningless as the Sunrisers would qualify for Wednesday’s eliminator in Centurion along with the Joburg Super Kings.
But, the Sunrisers will want to win that game no matter what the permutations to gain some momentum at home before travelling to Centurion for the playoff.
To do that, they are going to have to make some runs.
Their last two games produced 118 and 107.
You are not going to win too many games with such totals.
There needs to be some serious application from their top order for them to entertain thoughts of competing for a win.
The batters must take responsibility.
Ultimately, the continuous loss of wickets in the power plays has killed them, mostly away from home.
If they don’t remedy that, it’s unlikely they will get to bask in the glory of a three-peat of titles.
Sunriser batsman David Bedingham, who was the one shining light in the loss on Wednesday, scoring a run-a-ball 45, believes they can turn the corner and push for that third crown.
“We are in third place, so we haven’t done that badly,” Bedingham said in the post-match presser.
“But when we’ve lost, we’ve lost quite badly and that’s probably the nature of the game.
“We’d obviously like to be a lot more consistent and come the last [pool] game we can hopefully find some consistency leading into the playoffs.
“We have experience and a lot of big players to put matters right.
“We are three games away from a final, so if we can get on a run we can leave these three or four games behind and then hopefully go on and win the whole thing.”
The Herald
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