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Cape Town - Both the Paarl Rocks and Jozi Stars will be heading to Boland Park on Tuesday evening, hoping to open their Mzansi Super League accounts.
The home crowd left Boland Park in disappointment on Sunday after their Paarl Rocks side went down by a single run in a thriller to the Tshwane Spartans, whereas the Jozi Stars fell to a five-wicket defeat to the Nelson Mandela Bay Giants at Wanderers on Saturday evening.
Paarl Rocks captain Henry Davids believes his team will be better for the experience.
“There are a lot of positive things we can take from the game. It is a pity about the result. But I am fairly happy and at ease at where we are. The way we played there were a lot of positives,” Davids said.
“We know we have to execute better with the ball. I thought the batting was fairly good. It is not the end of the world, and, if we can carry on with the momentum we gained, we can only go from strength to strength.”
The Rocks will, though, have to make a couple of pivotal adjustments to their line-up. West Indies superstar Dwayne Bravo, who was influential with the ball claiming 3/31 against the Spartans, and batsman Cameron Delport have headed off to the United Arab Emirates for the Abu Dhabi T10 competition. The powerful Delport was the Rocks’ top run-scorer with a fluent 73 off 43 balls.
Equally, the Jozi Stars lose their hired-gun Chris Gayle for the next couple of matches. The big Jamaican provided a brief glimpse of his firepower with a rapid 23 at the Bullring, but he too now departs for the UAE.
Stars captain Dane Vilas believes the visitors can cope without Gayle and expects a better overall performance from his batsmen in Paarl.
“The camp is still in very good shape. We just had one poor day out and everybody is still positive. We bowled really well. The guys are pumped,” Vilas said.
“We let ourselves down with some of our decision making and obviously we didn’t put enough runs on the board, but I have full confidence in our batting line-up.”
Tickets for the match are available at Ticketpro or at the Boland Park Ticket Office.
Start time 19:00 and the match will be televised live on SABC3.
