A game of the barest of bare margins. There was absolutely nothing to separate the two teams until the final delivery. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be ours. Speaking to the media in the post-match press conference post the four-run loss to the Sunrisers Eastern Cape, MI Cape Town Head Coach, Robin Peterson, backed his boys to come back strong, spoke about the areas the team needed to work on, and the opportunities of making it to the play-offs. 

Thoughts on the second loss to SEC this season

Tough, obviously. We have had a couple of close encounters in this campaign, and we haven’t come out on the right side of it. We have to go back to the drawing board. Sunrisers, all in all, outran us. They were a little bit hungrier than we were today. With the ball, on the field, with the bat. They got those extra 15-20 runs, and we lost by four runs. We are going to have to look at ourselves and reflect, every individual in the group. Fortunately, this campaign is still in our hands. We will have to do a bit of soul searching and find something within. This is a franchise where there is a lot of expectation on is and the players, so we know we have the talent, it is about summoning the will. 

On where MICT lost the game

This is a tight competition. It is a game of small margins. If you look at the data, they had 20 twos, we had around four. From that perspective, it is a hard one to take. We are still in a position to qualify, which is a positive. But we have to start entering the race now. 

Whether the toss made a difference 

We would have batted first as well. We would have liked a little more. The difference was the running between the wickets. We got out-run today. I don’t think it was a case of skill. We hit boundaries at different times, but they had a bit more twos. We have to find a way to lower our dot ball percentage, and that will give us the extra 20-30 runs. 

On the positives from the game

There’s always positives, but we didn’t get over the line for the second time against the same team. We need to go back and find out why that is. Dewald Brevis getting runs was a positive. Hitting a few boundaries. He hasn’t had a great tournament, and for him to see the ball sail will give him a lot of confidence. We stayed up with the rate exactly the way we wanted to. Patrick Kruger and Ottniel Baartman closed their overs down well. They got way too many twos, showed their willingness to do the tough stuff today. 

On the areas the players need to work on going ahead 

I can’t question their commitment. They are pretty motivated as a group. Once you lose close games, the soul searching starts. But we are going to stick as a group. Win or lose, you need to stick together. These matches come thick and fast. Players play all around the world. For me, they need to stick together and show resilience in the competition. 

Whether the coach needs to do anything different

I don’t need to do anything. There are a lot of proud cricketers in that room. They need to reflect and see what they can bring to the team to get us over the line. We will look inside, come up with solutions and look to implement them. But it is still in our own hands. Last year Sunrisers qualified with four wins, so with a bit of luck, inspiration, and getting the little things right, we can do it.