MICT v Paarl Royals © PhotoShelter
MI Cape Town captain Rashid Khan won the toss and elected to bat first in their Betway SA20 match against the Paarl Royals at WSB Newlands on Monday.
MI Cape Town lead the head-to-head 3-1 and have won all their contests at Newlands.
MI Cape Town welcome back the league’s leading run-scorer, Ryan Rickelton, to the starting line-up.
The left-hander missed the home side’s first two encounters.
MI Cape Town are playing their first home game after two games on the road. Robbie Petersen’s side had a successful outing at St George’s Park where they inflicted the defending champions, Sunrisers Eastern Cape, their first loss of the season.
MI Cape Town have retained Delano Potgieter’s services since the inaugural season, and the 28-year-old seems to have finally found his sweet spot in MI Cape Town’s blue strip.
The allrounder bagged a five-wicket haul in their victory over the Sunrisers and he smashed an unbeaten 44 against Joburg Super Kings.
His 65-run seventh-wicket partnership with George Linde almost put his side in a winning position.
The Johannesburg-born allrounder will be keen to produce fireworks for the Newlands faithful.
The Royals are looking a different side to the ones that MI Cape Town overpowered in previous seasons, thanks to the business they conducted before and at the auction.
In their opening encounter, the Royals rolled out a new opening pair of Joe Root and Lhuan-dre Pretorius.
The duo decimated the Sunrisers’ bowling attack to leave the defending champions 0 in 2 after their trip to Cape Town.
Should their openers fail to deliver, they have a strong middle order anchored by the mercurial Dinesh Karthik to fall back on.
MI CAPE TOWN: Rassie van der Dussen, Reeza Hendricks, Ryan Rickelton (wk), Colin Ingram, Dewald Brevis, George Linde, Azmatullah Omarzai, Rashid Khan (capt), Delano Potgieter, Kagiso Rabada, Trent Boult.
PAARL ROYALS: Joe Root, Lhuan-dre Pretorius, Sam Hain, Mitchell van Buuren, David Miller (capt), Dinesh Karthik (wk), Dayyaan Galiem, Bjorn Fortuin, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Kwena Maphaka, Lungi Ngidi.
CS Chiwanza
supersport.com
