Joburg Giants ready to play at Wanderers

THE Joburg Giants will take their rightful place at the Bidvest Wanderers stadium as the T20 Global league cricket draws closer.

The 18-player strong team, which consists of international marquee player, Brendon McCullum from New Zealand and the bowling speedster, Kagiso Radaba, who is the local marquee player, will be based at Wanderers.

Joburg Giants will play their opening match against the Stellenbosch Monarchs on November 4 in Paarl at 2.30pm.

The team will then return for seven matches to be played at their home ground.

The opening T20 Global league match will take place in Cape Town on November 3 when Cape Town Knight Riders take on Pretoria Mavericks. The finals will take place at Bidvest Wanderers on December 16.

Joburg hope to bring T20 Global League glory to the City of Gold as they have unveiled their players after the player draft for the inaugural 2017 campaign was conducted in Cape Town on Sunday.

Joburg Giants players will field a young team built around their marquee players, According to Radaba they team is young and energetic.

“We are a team that is made up of young players, though we have the experience of players in the likes of Brendon (McCullum) and Themba (Bavuma) who will bring their batting experience to the younger players.”

“I am confident that we can outclass some of the other teams and play in the finals.”

Rest of the squad: Colin Ingram‚ Vernon Philander‚ Andile Phehlukwayo‚ Chris Jonker‚ Temba Bavuma‚ Patrick Kruger‚ Yasir Shah‚ Nicolas Pooran‚ Duanne Olivier‚ Jonathan Vandiar‚ Roelof van der Merwe‚ Andries Gous‚ Rabian Engelbrecht‚ Dane Piedt‚ Andre Malan‚ Zubayr Hamza.

Coach: Sridharan Sriram. Assistant coach: Grant Morgan

The T20 Global League is an international T20 cricket league based in South Africa. The T20 Global League will debut in the last quarter of 2017, with eight participating teams consisting of local and international cricket players. The eight T20 Global League franchises are privately owned and matches will be played across South Africa in the following cities: Benoni, Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Stellenbosch, Pretoria, Port Elizabeth.

Cricket South Africa, the national governing body of cricket in South Africa, are the owners of the T20 Global League.

The T20 Global League unveiled a whirlwind start to its inaugural season when the final match schedule was released in Cape Town on Monday.

The league starts with a typical north-south derby between the Cape Town Knight Riders and the Pretoria Mavericks at Newlands on November 3. This will be followed by two double-headers on the Saturday and Sunday. In all, five different venues will host the opening weekend of matches which will see all eight franchises in action.

There will be double-headers every weekend as well as several in midweek as the League holds 57 matches in the space of 44 action-packed days. There are three built-in rest/travel days, similar to the famous Tour de France cycle race schedule, to give the squads some respite in a tournament that is going to test the endurance of all the squads.

To add to the excitement there is a one-off final between the top two finishers on the log and no opportunity for teams to get in through the back door of an eliminator or qualifier.

Join in the T20 Global League conversation by using the hashtag #T20GL. Follow all the updates via our social pages:

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