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Players from both the teams are out in the middle along with the match officials. The South African national anthem will be played next followed by the match action!
(TOI Photo)
It is hot. 82m straight hit, 60m and 59m side hits. I am pretty impressed, nice grass cover and there is a sheen to it. From the outside it looks wonderful. Not much moisture but there is grass so it might do something for the seamers.
If we had to chose we would have batted as well. There is some moisture around though, so hopefully we can make use of it with the ball. Runs on the board mainly is the reason we wanted to bat first than the conditions. One forced change. Baartman is out injured, Andile Simelane is back in.
We would like to bat first, big game so runs on the board. Fresh wicket as well. We needed some rest with the amount of cricket we played over the last one month. Everyone's rested well and ready to go. You got to control your nerves in a game like the final. One change, Sediqullah is out, Connor is back in.
(TOI photo)
We were the team at the bottom for two years, now we're the team at the top. We have been playing some amazing cricket for the last month. Yes, they have a good experience being finalists the last three years, but I think for us, we'll be just focusing on playing good cricket and focusing on what we did great in the last month that got us here. The best thing is to beat the opposition team with your own skills, make sure whatever the challenge is, we accept that and do well in that.
I'm looking forward to it, to be honest. Apparently it’s been sold out weeks ago already, so already the hype will be there. For players, that's really cool. Not just myself, I think all the boys are really keen. We love playing in front of full stadiums and the atmosphere at Wanderers when it's full is almost like no other. I’m looking forward to that. It's always a special occasion - a final at Wanderers.