SEASON three of South Africa’s premier T20 competition, the SA20, is here, with MI Cape Town travelling to Sunrisers Eastern Cape in the tournament-opener at St George’s Park tonight at 5.30pm.
The match pits back-to-back champions Sunrisers Eastern Cape from Gqeberha against their Kaapse neighbours MI CT, who have finished heel laaste in both tournaments played to date - 2023 and 2024.
Proteas veteran Rassie van der Dussen and his brasse, though, are eager to flip the script against captain Aiden Markram and his Sunrisers pals.
Van der Dussen says of their performances in the first two tournaments: “When you don’t do well, especially in sports in a team environment, the positive of not doing well is sometimes learning what not to do.
“We gave it a go in the first two years, but it wasn’t successful, we made some mistakes. In saying that, as a team together we learnt how not to go about it.
“So, we’ll reflect on that and see if this is where we went wrong in the last two editions and hopefully, we can rectify that. The chat around the team is just trying to build a cohesive environment, an environment where we enjoy each other’s company and the management has a big influence on that.”
Fellow Proteas Ryan Rickelton, George Linde, Dewald Brevis and Kagiso Rabada are on the books of MI Cape Town, while Markram could take the field alongside David Bedingham, Tristan Stubbs, Marco Jansen and Ottneil Baartman.