Sunrisers Eastern Cape might need to shuffle the batting positions.
Sunrisers Eastern Cape (SEC) will face Pretoria Capitals (PC) in the 5th match of SA20 2026 in Gqeberha. Both teams had contrasting results in their previous games: SEC won the contest comprehensively by 137 runs, while PC lost by 22 runs.
Sunrisers Eastern Cape: Quinton de Kock (wk), Jonny Bairstow, Marco Jansen, Matthew Breetzke, Jordan Hermann, Tristan Stubbs (c), Senuran Muthusamy, Lewis Gregory, Tharindu Rathnayake, Anrich Nortje, Adam Milne
Pretoria Capitals: Will Smeed, Bryce Parsons, Shai Hope, Dewald Brevis, Connor Esterhuizen, Daniel Smith (wk), Roston Chase, Codi Yusuf, Keshav Maharaj (c), Tymal Mills, Lungi Ngidi
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This will be the first game of the season in Gqeberha. Last season, the average first-innings score at this venue was 159, with pacers snaring 67.81% of the wickets here. Pacers’ average (16.03) at this venue was the best among all six grounds.
Spinners did well to restrict runs, but they weren’t quite as effective in terms of wickets as at a few other venues. Even in the recent CSA T20 Challenge, pacers took around 70% of the total scalps at St. George’s Park. So, expect more pace dominance in the contest.
In the opening game, Jonny Bairstow opened with Quinton de Kock and ended up playing a negative-impact knock. He scored 31 runs in 33 balls, including five fours, at a strike rate of 93.94. Recently, Bairstow has often been restricted against spinners, and with early movement on offer, he will have more issues than before.
In the powerplay, Bairstow has a strike rate of 85.29 and a balls-per-boundary ratio of 11.33 against spinners this year. During the field restrictions, Bairstow has a strike rate of 76.92 against off-spinners, whereas 90.47 against left-arm orthodox. Pretoria Capitals have two quality spinners, Keshav Maharaj and Roston Chase, who are capable of bowling with the new ball.
Chase has an economy rate of 7.70 across 10 overs, whereas Maharaj has conceded only 8.33 runs per over in the powerplay this year. So, even if they don’t take wickets, both are capable of holding runs against someone who already struggles against spinners. Meanwhile, Jonny Bairstow’s partner Quinton de Kock also struggles against spinners early on: 107.29 strike rate, 7.21 balls-per-boundary ratio, and 7 dismissals.
Clearly, Jonny Bairstow and Quinton de Kock can’t open together in this fixture, unless the innings might be stagnant during the powerplay. Their negative matchups will make the Pretoria Capitals’ job easier. That will also put pressure on the middle order.
Quinton de Kock’s best comes at the top and should stay as an opener, given he still brings solid skill sets against pace. However, Jonny Bairstow shouldn’t open for Sunrisers Eastern Cape, and Mitchell van Buuren should come in to open in his place. Buuren is a better player of spin and adds the variety too, since he is also an RHB.
He preserves his wicket better, but SEC might still face the same issue of a slow start. Hence, the ideal shuffle should be to push Matthew Breetzke at the top to open with Quinton, with one of Bairstow or Buuren at No.3. Breetzke gives better powerplay skills and can counter spin.
Meanwhile, Bairstow will get to bat out of the field restrictions, where he can at least manoeuvre the strike and maintain the tempo. This will reduce PC’s spinners’ threat, if not take it away completely. That will also allow Sunrisers Eastern Cape to optimise their batting lineup fully.
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