Johannesburg — The Pretoria Capitals will wait until the last minute to assess the fitness of captain Wayne Parnell ahead of the inaugural Betway SA20 final against Sunrisers Eastern Cape at the Wanderers tomorrow.
Parnell suffered a Grade 1 groin injury in the round-robin fixture last Saturday evening against MI Cape Town and has since missed three matches in a row, including the tense semi-final victory over the Paarl Royals on Wednesday.
The all-rounder is an integral part of the Capitals’ line-up due to his inspirational leadership, ability to strike with the new ball and lower-order hitting. Stand-in captain Theunis de Bruyn has done an adequate job in the interim, but the Capitals do want their skipper on the field for the all-important showpiece.
“I am making good progress. We’ll have to see tomorrow (Saturday) whether I am fit enough to get into the XI,” Parnell told the media at the pre-match press conference at the Wanderers.
The Capitals have had the better of the Sunrisers in both league fixtures at home and away, but the Eastern Cape side have improved immeasurably since those early tournament days.
Their 14-run victory over Joburg Super Kings in the second semi-final at Centurion showed off their qualities, especially that of captain Aiden Markram that struck a scintillating century.
Parnell and the Capitals are certainly not taking anything for granted and expect a full onslaught from “The Orange Army” especially at the Wanderers where the surface has brought teams closer together.
“I think obviously playing in any sort of final, it's a once-off game. The Sunrisers are a really strong side and a side that we identified early on that will probably get into the play-offs,” he said.
“Playing at the Wanderers is going to be a great spectacle, but the wicket has obviously played a little bit different to the sort of normal Wanderers wicket. We’ve also had weather around, which means the pitch has been covered, so it's about getting there and assessing the conditions accordingly. Our semi-final here showed the importance of getting to a total that is competitive.”
The Sunrisers, meanwhile, are quite comfortable with the “underdog” tag against the table-toppers, and according to Markram, that is what brings the best out of his squad, especially talisman Roelof van der Merwe who has 16 wickets in the competition already.
“He is a great guy to be around. We all know him for the strong character that he is, and its infectious that sort of energy that he gives off. After losing our first two games, we felt that we probably were going to need some strong characters to turn things around and you don’t get stronger characters around than Roelof van der Merwe,” Markram said.
“If you look on paper, there wouldn’t have been many people who would have given us much of a chance heading into the competition. Credit must go to the guys in the squad, who will do almost anything to win, and we’ve been lucky to have those types of characters in our squad.”
The Johannesburg forecast for the Wanderers final is not looking good with the field currently covered in puddles. A reserve day has been set aside for Sunday if play is abandoned on Saturday.
LIKELY STARTING XI’S FOR SA20 FINAL
Pretoria Capitals: Philip Salt (wk), Kusal Mendis, Theunis de Bruyn, Rilee Rossouw, Colin Ingram, James Neesham, Senuran Muthusamy, Migael Pretorius/Wayne Parnell (captain), Eathan Bosch, Adil Rashid, Anrich Nortje
Sunrisers Eastern Cape: Aiden Markram (captain), Adam Rossington, Jordan Hermann, Temba Bavuma, Tristan Stubbs, Marco Jansen, Brydon Carse, Jordan Cox, Roelof van der Merwe, Sisanda Magala, Ottniel Baartman
Start: 4:30pm TV: SuperSport
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