Johannesburg – 21 February 2026:
A hugely important weekend of cricket awaits our DP World Lions ladies as they travel to Cape Town to take on a top-class Western Province team at Newlands.
A chance to go to the top of the 50 over standings awaits #ThePrideOfJozi when they play the fourth-placed Western Province team, who will be eager to get themselves back into contention for a place in the final. The T20 match is a must-win for our DP World Lions if they want to catch Western Province at the top of the log, five points ahead, and have a chance of hosting that final.
From last weekend’s team that recorded a double win over the Garden Route Badgers from South-Western Districts, Proteas call-ups have given Tumi Sekhukhune and Fay Cowling, for the first time at senior level, well-deserved promotions. But the DP World Lions are getting a world-class bowler back in Ayabonga Khaka, who is not involved in the one-day series against Pakistan.
Khaka will join a DP World Lions attack that has been in top-class form this season and coach Sandile Masengemi will be looking to them to force a strong Western Province batting line-up outside of their comfort zone.
“Western Province play a good brand of cricket, they really understand their game, so it is going to be very important for us to be disciplined and fielding will obviously also be important. If we are able to put them under pressure then we should be able to get the result we want,” Masengemi said.
“The same goes for the batting. If we can get partnerships going, like we did against them at the DP World Wanderers Stadium earlier this season when we scored 270 for eight, then we will put them under pressure. The key for me is going to be our batting.”
The batting of the DP World Lions has not had the same consistency as the bowling, but the ability is certainly there, it is just the decision-making in the vital moments that has let them down.
“Some of our top-order have not played that much this season and others struggle with certain formats. The batting has not been great this season, and things like run outs are something we can control. There have been silly, silly incidents and we need to be better with our decision-making and hopefully we can start better with the bat,” Masengemi said.
The calmness of the team when they were under pressure against the Badgers last weekend saw them produce the sort of quality cricket required to win the tight games though, and #ThePrideOfJozi will be looking to showcase the best versions of themselves at the weekend at the Newlands Cricket Ground.