The provincial franchise is still riding the wave of their conquest of the 4-Day competition after they were crowned tournament champions.
THE HIGH-flying NC Heat team hopes to take forward their momentum of the CSA 4-Day Domestic Series, as they change gear for the shorter white-ball format against Eastern Storm at the Diamond Oval today.
The provincial franchise is still riding the wave of their conquest of the 4-Day competition after they were crowned tournament champions.
The squad is still in a buoyant mood after earning their first major title as a new provincial franchise brand with Mark Charlton at the helm. In the just-concluded 4-Day red-ball series NC Heat discovered a couple of gems in its batting line-up. Evan Jones and Isaac Dikgale were the discoveries of note that immediately come to mind.
Jones, a native of Pretoria, caught the public’s attention with a superb, unbeaten 150 in the first innings of their match against South Western Districts in February, even though they ultimately lost that game by eight wickets.
Dikgale, for his part, anchored NC Heat’s first innings in their match against the Limpopo Rhinos in March, contributing a solid 232 runs consisting of 25 boundaries and five sixes on that occasion.
Head coach March Charlton said the team is pleased with the fact that they were crowned champions. “We are very proud of winning that competition. I think the guys played very well. Overall we had a very good campaign.
“Obviously now we are moving into the 50-over competition which is a different format so I training changed slightly. We’ve been a little more specific with certain parts of our game – our death hitting, death bowling and our rotation skills have been very important.
“In terms of our conditioning, we’re doing lots more sprinting because there’s a lot more high intensity in terms of 50-overs cricket.
“It is a little bit of a change but we’ve been playing good cricket,” Chalton added. “I hope we can take the momentum forward from our last game with the last competition into the 50-overs,” he added.
The coach did express mild concern in the fact that the Heat will be starting ‘cold’ against a warmed up Storm team. “We’re playing our first game against Eastern Storm,” he said. “It’s their third game already. They’ve won one and lost one,” he said.
