Johannesburg – 30 January 2026:
In a clear sign of how committed our DP World Lions are to defending their share of the CSA 4-Day Series title, coach Russell Domingo and his charges were back to hard training on Monday, the day after the SA20 finished, in preparation for their vital visit to Gqeberha to play the Eastern Province Warriors from Sunday.
There was not much time for celebrations for Domingo, who once again assisted Adrian Birrell in winning the SA20 final for the St George’s Park based Sunrisers Eastern Cape, or for successful players Lutho Sipamla, Beyers Swanepoel and Mitchell van Buuren.
Connor Esterhuizen and Codi Yusuf similarly had to quickly get over the Pretoria Capitals’ loss in the final in Cape Town.
“It’s a big game against the Warriors and everyone was very excited to get back after a month off from red-ball cricket. We’ve had good practices this week,” Domingo said. “The Warriors have been playing good cricket in the four-day competition and we will need to play well.
“The competition is wide open and things change very quickly on the log from week-to-week. We beat the Titans to go top but then had one or two very bad sessions against the North-West Dragons and lost, before having a good game against Boland but lost a day and a bit to the weather so we couldn’t force the win.”
Winning three of their five matches and drawing the other two has seen the Warriors climb to the top of the standings, but #ThePrideOfJozi, being just over 10 points behind them, are able to overtake them if they can beat them at St George’s Park. The fact that this is their penultimate match, with the KZN Inland Tuskers coming to the DP World Wanderers Stadium in the last round-robin fixture from February 9, will no doubt add to the sense of urgency.
There is bound to be some sort of hangover from their SA20 success in the Warriors camp given that they provided seven players to the Sunrisers squad, although Tristan Stubbs is away with the Proteas.
Meanwhile, Domingo is delighted to be able to field something close to his first-choice XI, excluding the T20 Proteas, for just about the first time this season given the number of players provided earlier in the summer to national teams travelling to all sorts of corners of the globe. Sipamla and Yusuf should be back together to spearhead the pace attack, helping our DP World Lions be more penetrative alongside Swanepoel and spinner Bjorn Fortuin.
Wiaan Mulder and Zubayr Hamza should also return, helping the solidity of the batting line-up.
But there will be plenty of confident cricketers opposing the DP World Lions in Gqeberha, given the successful summer they are having down there, and you always have to play smart and clinical cricket to win at St George’s Park. Given Domingo’s expert knowledge of Eastern Cape conditions and the quality and motivation of the players available to him, you would not bet against #ThePrideOfJozi getting the job done against the Warriors.