Durban Heat eye batting improvement

The Durban outfit have managed one win in three games, while their two losses have come down lapses in concentration by their star-studded batting line-up.

On Friday, the Heat went down to the Nelson Mandela Bay Giants in a match that saw skipper Albie Morkel retire injured on 28 runs. Morkel was hit a ball while waiting at the non-strikers end during his innings and was forced to leave the field.

Given his form so far in the competition, the experienced allrounder could have cracked on and put the Heat in a commanding position batting first.

However, a relatively low score of 127/6 was chased down with ease by the hosts, who won the match by 9 wickets. The result has put some pressure on the Heat going into a busy 12 days of cricket.

Their first hurdle is a clash with the Paarl Rocks in Durban on Wednesday night. The Heat will make a late call on the fitness of their skipper Morkel, who took a nasty blow to his right wrist while batting against the Giants last Friday.

While the pressure is rising, the team seems fairly settled and their senior players are quietly confident that they will hat their straps sooner rather than later.

Proteas spinner Keshav Maharaj maintains that the team’s attitude is right, going into tomorrow’s match.

“I don’t think the mentality has changed from the way we started the tournament, I think we’ve been really positive. Things haven’t clicked on the batting front, but it’s actually a good thing, it probably helped get the rustiness out the way. They always talk about team’s peaking at the right time and I think we’re heading that way,” Maharaj said.

Proteas star David Miller also believes that the amount of experience in the team will help going into a busy block of cricket.

“Cricket is a funny game and it can go both ways. Unfortunately it’s gone that way twice now but we’ve got a really mature unit, a lot have played international cricket so there is nothing to be alarmed about. We’re experienced, and we know what to do,” Miller said.

“The next two weeks we have six games, so if we get onto a role momentum is massive in T20 cricket. We’ve regrouped, we’re well prepared, we’ve got fresh minds after the weekend and we’re definitely ready to go. The bowling department has been outstanding so if we just need to put some runs on the board.”

Paarl Rocks are in the same boat as the Durban Heat, with two losses and solitary win in their three matches so far.  Nevertheless coach Grant Morgan is under no illusion that the visitors will be pushovers on Wednesday night.

The visitors are captained by Proteas skipper Faf du Plessis and have an equally strong lineup featuring Proteas batsman Aiden Markram and versatile spinner Tabraiz Shamsi.

Morgan says his charges need to bring their best to Kingsmead:

“Paarl are well led, they’ve got the national captain, a highly gifted man who moulds people together. He’s a great a leader and he’s their archetypal strength. They’ve got a very good coach, key players, match winners in areas of their line-up so again we must be at our best. To be honest, we haven’t hit 100 percent yet, that’s what we’re looking for," Morgan said.

Play gets underway at 19h00 at Kingsmead in Durban.