Pretoria Capitals v Paarl Royals
Tuesday 7 February, 15:30
TV: Live on Sky Sports
Team news
Pretoria Capitals produced their worst performance of the tournament in their previous outing. A changed XI were thrashed by Durban. Their backers will hope they are not playing fast and loose with energy and commitment. It can be hard to turn it back on.
They conceded 254 and one has to question whether a team capable of such profligacy in the field can really win a franchise league. Still, it has come late in the day and they only need to win one from two in the play-offs to make the final.
Possible XI: Salt, Mendis, De Bruyn, Rossouw, Dadswell, Neesham, Muthusamy, Parnell, Bosch, Nortje, Little
Paarl Royals should qualify so long as they avoid a heavy defeat. They've not been quite the power-packed batting line-up some may have expected with Jos Buttler and Jason Roy slightly underwhelming in terms of strike rate.
Possible XI: Roy, Buttler, Lubbe, Vilas, Miller, Jones, van Buuren, Phehlukwayo, Fortuin, Ngidi, Shamsi
Pitch report
There is a heavy bias for the chaser at Centurion and one would be mad to go against it. Durban's 254 in first-innings was an outlier, of course, with 179 usually a winning score. Pretoria busted 216 in the first game. It's an overs play in the low 160s.
How to play
For the second-successove match Pretoria are priced as if the market knows they couldn't give a damn. They are as big as 1.9310/11. That makes no sense with the respective form of the two sides. If Pretoria chase, then they should win and we don't expect the market to change much on the flip.
Tops value
Buttler is 11/4 for top Paarl bat with Sportsbook. We note the 18/1 offered for Pretoria's Shane Dadswell. Dadswell has batted at No 5 this term so it is a price which should be taken.