Super Kings shake off first defeat as they gear up for Royals clash

After being handed their first defeat of the tournament at the weekend, assistant coach Albie Morkel says the Joburg Super Kings will take the loss on the chin and “move on” as they prepare for their next SA20 match against Paarl Royals at Boland Park on Monday (5.30pm start). 

Ahead of yesterday’s game between Sunrisers Eastern Cape and Durban’s Super Giants, the Royals were lying second in the league table on 12 points (two points behind MI Cape Town) and the Super Kings were third, a further two points back.

While the Royals were fresh off an eight-wicket victory over Pretoria Capitals on Saturday, the Super Kings were handed a seven-wicket defeat against MI Cape Town.

It was the Super Kings’ first loss of the tournament, though they also lost out on potential points after one of their previous matches had been rained out, but Morkel said they were confident of bouncing back in Paarl on Monday.

Turning things around

“If you want a perfect tournament, you’d like to win all your games, but as we’ve seen in tournaments like this, you do get stumbling blocks,” Morkel said.

“When it happens early in the tournament it’s actually better, so we as a coaching unit won’t really dig too deep into this.

“We were outplayed, and that’s the bottom line, so we’ll just move on to Paarl, and hopefully we can turn it around again.”

Coetzee ruled out

It was revealed yesterday that Super Kings fast bowler Gerald Coetzee had been ruled out of the rest of the SA20 campaign with a hamstring injury.

Though Morkel admitted this was a significant knock for their side, he conceded that other teams found themselves in the same boat, and they would just need to find a way to push forward without Coetzee.

“Currently there are about nine South African fast bowlers who were injured across all the teams, so it is a worrying thing,” Morkel said.

“We’re trying to find reasons why. Maybe it’s a lack of cricket, I don’t know, but most of the local domestic franchises do have good fitness trainers. But it is a problem.

“It’s big for us (losing Coetzee) but we have to juggle with the guys we still have. We still have a strong spin contingent, so hopefully we can get in spin-friendly conditions and put those guys into play.”