Western Province coach Faiek Davids believes the harsh lessons of last season’s dismal Africa T20 Cup campaign have been learnt and that his side are ready to launch a fresh challenge second time around.
Province will always at be at a disadvantage heading into any early season tournament due to the lack of outdoor training options in Cape Town. This was a significant factor during the inaugural edition of the Africa T20 Cup when Davids’s side were literally caught cold on an icy weekend in Benoni.
This year Province travel to the somewhat warmer tropical climate of Pietermaritzburg, to face hosts KwaZulu-Natal Inland, Namibia and North West on the opening weekend of Africa Cup 2016.
“The fact that we haven’t trained outside at all yet is not going to be used as an excuse anymore. It’s just the way it is down here. We just need to adapt quicker once we arrive in Pietermaritzburg. We're on a 6am flight on Thursday morning, so we’ll fit in plenty of training time later in the day just to soak up the sun that will hopefully be out,” Davids told Independent Media.
“We have to hit the ground running. It’s been nice to have the whole squad together for the first time this week. Guys have come back from their overseas stints and others from the national academy, so the boys are gelling nicely and we’ll work on getting run-ups and communication between batting partners and all those little things ready before Friday’s opener.”
The Province squad has youthful look to it with no senior Cape Cobras franchise players included this year, but Davids believes the exuberance and energy these young players bring will be a major asset. Davids certainly expects Cobras rookies Zubayr Hamza and Jason Smith to leave their mark on proceedings this weekend, while others to look out for are off-spinner Emmanuel Seberame and all-rounder Dayaan Galiem.
“We’ve backed our youth structures here in the Western Cape and its ideal opportunity for the likes of Zubayr, Jason Smith and Dayaan Galiem to put up their hands and really take ownership of their games. Jason is coming off a superb winter with the National Academy and Dayaan, Zubayr and ‘Mannie’ have the experience of playing in the Africa Cup last year. They're one year older and more experienced and we’re expecting them to play big roles in our campaign,” Davids said.
The former South African Cricket Board and WP all-rounder is also certainly not taking south-west neighbours Namibia lightly this weekend after the Province lost to a Zimbabwe XI at Willowmoore Park last season. The ICC Associate nation has a good blend of experience and youth in the form of 33-year-old all-rounder Sarel Burger and 19-year-old prodigy Zane Green.
“Make no mistake Namibia are a very dangerous side. They play primarily T20/short form cricket. They play in plenty of ICC tournaments and their players have a lot of big-game experience. We know we need to be on the money from ball one. We’ve worked hard our own T20 game in trying to be more creative, to be more attacking and adventurous, but we know we still need to execute the basics first,” Davids said.
FULL WP SQUAD
Pieter Malan, Zubayr Hamza, Sybrand Engelbrecht, Jason Smith, Shaheen Khan, Kyle Verreynne, Dayyaan Galiem, George Linde, Mpilo Njoloza, Emmanuel Seberame, Tshepo Moreki, Aviwe Mgijima, Matthew Kleinveldt
WP’S AFRICA T20 CUP FIXTURES
Tomorrow: vs Namibia, 9.45, City Oval, Pietermaritzburg
Saturday: vs KwaZulu-Natal Inland, 13:15, City Oval, Pietermaritzburg
Sunday: vs North West, 9.45, City Oval, Pietermaritzburg - Independent Media