'Winning is always at the forefront': Pretoria Capitals skipper Wayne Parnell upbeat ahead of SA20 2025

Wayne Parnell, the left-arm pace bowling all-rounder from South Africa, has played in various T20 leagues across the world for different teams. In the South Africa’s T20 league, SA20, Parnell has represented Pretoria Capitals as the franchise's captain since the inaugural season in 2023.

Under his leadership the Capitals finished as runners-up in the first season, however, the second season was not up to the mark as they finished fifth in the points table after suffering six defeats.

Parnell has been a consistent performer himself in the league, picking up 24 wickets at an average of 18.41 and scoring 155 runs at an average of 17.22 in 17 matches so far across two seasons of the SA20. Parnell has represented South Africa, making his debut in 2009, in 135 international matches across formats and has taken 173 wickets.




Parnell will lead the Capitals again for the third season of SA20 next year.

"Firstly, being back with the Pretoria Capitals for season 3 is quite awesome, obviously, we’ve tried to build something really special from season 1. Season 1 went really well for us, season 2 not so much, but we still managed to play some good cricket and are looking forward to season 3 again," Parnell said.

On the trophy aspirations of the franchise, Parnell said "I think it will be really nice to give the Capitals family a trophy. We obviously have a lot of different teams around the world, and that’s probably something that we kind of lacked in the Capitals setup, some silverware, so that will be nice."




Parnell also revealed his captaincy strategy and what he looks for as a leader.

"From a team point of view, I think just encouraging everyone to just be themselves, firstly. Also empowering people to be leaders within their own space, from the squad that we have so far, there is a lot of experience, there’s a lot of guys in the middle of their career, there’s a lot of younger guys as well, so, it’s a really good mix of personnel that we have," he said regarding his captaincy mantra.

On his own contributions as a player, Parnell remarked: "From a personal point of view, again, just contributing wherever possible, be it with the ball be it with the bat or in the field, making the right decision at the right time, my mindset is always to go for the positive option, always see the more aggressive option, yes, sometimes might get it wrong, might get questioned for it but at the end of the day winning for me is always at the forefront."