Royals and Sunrisers gun for perfect start to SA20 season four

The Paarl Royals and Sunrisers Eastern Cape will both be gunning for a perfect start to the fourth edition of the SA20 when they collide in their competition opener at Boland Park in Paarl on Saturday evening (5:30pm start).

The Royals were one of the two in form teams during SA20 season three, finishing second on the log behind eventual winners MI Cape Town, while they also became the first team to win all of their home matches in a season.

However they went on to lose both of their playoff games, to MICT and the Sunrisers, so with a changed team this season, but the same captain, in David Miller, they will be aiming to do even better this campaign.

“It’s a relatively new squad and a new season. We’ve got a lot of youngsters in our squad, and that brings a lot of energy, enthusiasm, and talented players, who’s careers potentially haven’t kicked off yet. So this is a great platform for them to launch them,” explained Miller ahead of their opener.

“We also have a handful of senior players who have been around and done a lot of good things in their career, so having that experience is really good. Overall I think we have a really solid setup.

“The guys have trained really hard, and everyone wants to win the trophy at the end of the day. That is definitely in our sights and it’s about making sure we take it one game at a time and get off to a good start in the first game.”

Successful Sunrisers

The Sunrisers are the most successful team in the fledgling SA20s history, with them having made all three finals, and won the first two, and they will be eager to continue their impressive record of making every single final so far.

But Paarl is a tough place to win, as seen by the Royals unbeaten record their last season, and Sunrisers new signing Mitchell van Buuren it’s not imperative for them to get off to a winning start, although they would enjoy that.

“I think there is some importance to starting well. But as we have seen in previous editions of the tournament it isn’t necessarily needed to come out of the blocks hot,” said Van Buuren.

“It is great to start well and get that early momentum going. But as the tournament goes on I think it is more critical to get that momentum later as the comp heads into the latter stages. Ideally, we’d like to be invincible and win all our games.

“But any momentum at any point of a comp, especially in T20 cricket is crucial. So one thing we will certainly be looking to do is get that momentum early.”

Van Buuren added that the team was fired up and ready for the tough early challenge: “We are feeling very good, prepared and ready to go. I think our preparation has been exceptional. We’ve had a couple of training sessions and warm up games and it’s all been going well.

“So I am very excited for the season opener down in Paarl. It’s a place where I have played some cricket before. So hopefully I get an opportunity (to play). But the team is ready to go, everyone looks good, the spirits are high and everyone is just buzzing for the SA20 to start.”