David Miller leads the Paarl Royals onto the field during their SA20 match against MI Cape Town at Newlands over the weekend. Picture: Shaun Roy/Sportzpics/SA20 After losing their first game of the competition, captain David Miller was delighted with the fight shown by the Paarl Royals, bouncing back to place themselves in a solid position approaching the midway point of the SA20 league. The Royals werethumped by 137 runsin their opening match against Sunrisers Eastern Cape, after being bowled out for just 49 runs.
But they went on to win three games on the trot, edging out Sunrisers in their return fixture before securing successive wins over defending champions MI Cape Town. In their latest fixture, theycrushed the title holdersby seven wickets at Newlands on Sunday, and they were just two points behind log leaders Joburg Super Kings. “Obviously it was a terrible start… but I suppose these things do happen in T20 cricket.
Every now and again the bowlers get on top of you, you lose a couple of wickets, you’re behind the eight ball and suddenly you’re 49 all out,” Miller said. “So it was one of those things to forget about, and we just kind of went back to the drawing board, got back to our strengths, and committed to our plans and our shots. “The biggest thing for me was just all pulling together.
Read Full Article on The Citizen
[paywall]
We’ve got a lot of young guys in our team, so it’s about making sure everyone is contributing at any stage… because every contribution makes a big difference. So for me that’s kind of what we did do, pulled together.” Meanwhile, MI Cape Town all-rounder Corbin Bosch was confident they could claw their way back into contention for a spot in the playoffs. As the only team without a win, the title holders were flailing at the bottom of theSA20 standingswith five matches left in the league stage of the competition.
“There’s still a long competition left. There’s still five games for us to win,” Bosch said after their latest defeat. “I have no doubt the boys are obviously disappointed today, but I do think we have the experience and magnificent players in our squad to turn this around, and we still have a competition to win.”
[/paywall]
