Western Province will be looking to smoke the North West Dragons in their own backyard at Senwes Park in Potchefstroom today at 6pm.
Up for grabs in this T20 Challenge qualifier is a place in the “semifinals” of the tournament.
Coach Salieg Nackerdien’s WP head into the clash as underdogs after sneaking into fourth place at the end of the round-robin phase.
The tournament structure means they now face the Dragons who finished third for the right to play the loser of last night’s match between the Lions and the Titans in what will be the only “semifinal”.
The winner of last night’s match between the top two teams on the standings went straight into the final.
For WP, they have a mountain to climb against a giftige Dragons outfit.
Big-hitting Proteas fast bowler Marco Jansen is the hosts’ main attraction and wysed how destructive he can be lower down the order in their last outing, smashing 29 off just 14 balls against the Lions.
They also have a rejuvenated Janneman Malan in their arsenal. Malan has scored the second-most runs in the tournament to date – 247 at an average of 49.4 runs per innings – as he continues to chase after his dream of making the Proteas team again.
In Jansen, Migael Pretorius and Kerwin Mungroo, tonight’s hosts at Senwes Park have a good pace attack.
Facing up to them, Province have the tournament’s best batsman to date in Eddie Moore.
The WP opener has scored a total of 265 runs at an average of 88.33 to help his team to this stage of the tournament.
They’ll need him to be at his very best again if they are to progress.
Mihlali Mpongwana, meanwhile, has been WP’s yster with the ball so far this season, taking 10 wickets at an average of 13.2 runs per wicket.
So when captains Beuran Hendricks (WP) and Wihan Lubbe do the coin toss in Potch, they’ll know this is a bots that can go either way.