MI Cape Town batting coach Hashim Amla is as cool and calm as ever, despite his charges making a hash of it in the SA20.
The Cape team’s batters imploded big time in their last two matches in the tournament, firstly bowled out for just 103 runs to go down by 59 tuns to Paarl Royals last Sunday, before getting only 121/9 in 20 overs in pursuit of Durban Super Giants’ 157/6 at Newlands on Tuesday night.
Amla admits that they should have done better in the last match, saying: “We just didn’t manage to find any rhythm with the bat and get any partnerships. [A score of] 157 – you would have taken that, bowling first. It’s not a really big score and the wicket played pretty decently.”
Fourth on the table before last night’s match between fifth-placed Joburg Super Kings and table-toppers Paarl Royals, captain Kieron Pollard and his span next face a tough challenge against defending champs Sunrisers Eastern Cape at St George’s Park on Saturday.
And with openers Ryan Rickelton (355 runs) and Rassie van der Dussen (229) scoring the bulk of their runs – the next best is Sam Curran with 102 – could we see MI CT bringing in some fresh faces?
Selection
Amla, who believes consistency in selection is key, doesn’t think so and says: “Every strategic move can backfire and you have to have a clear way of doing things.
“Four of those [six] games [to date] our batting has been good because of our top order. We believe it could work and that’s why we go for that strategy [in selection], we believe it gives players the best opportunity of being free to play in the philosophy we want to, which is aggression with intent and that is what we saw in the first four games.”