The top three sides, comprising the North West Dragons (19 points), Lions (18), and Titans (17), have been settled, and they have stood out from the rest of the teams since the start of the competition, and heading into the weekend, it will be a question of who finishes in what position as the prized first qualifier could offer an easier route to the final.
The Dragons will welcome the defending champions, the Lions, at the JB Marks Oval in Potchefstroom today in what will be a straight shootout to see who qualifies top of the log.
Wihan Lubbe and his troops are currently in pole position, but only two points separate them from the third-placed Titans, who trail the Lions by a single point, leaving the race for the top spot wide open.
The Titans will visit the Warriors, who are hanging in to the last qualification place by a thread, and they need to deliver a winning performance against a solid Titans side when they also clash later today.
The Keegan Petersen-led outfit have not had the best of outings in recent times, with only one win from their last four fixtures, including a rained-out encounter against the Dragons on Tuesday.
Petersen has been entrusted with the captaincy role despite this being his first season with the Pretoria-based side following his move from Boland. The signs are, however, pointing in the right direction, with already an improvement from last season with the former champions having already qualified for the next round.
“The Titans have been a successful franchise for the past few years, and I wanted to be a part of that to stay relevant in South African cricket.” Petersen told the Independent Newspapers.
“We come from a bit of a difficult year, but we have had conversations about reverting to the Titans of old and what we stand for, and we will try to hold ourselves highly to those standards, and hopefully that will help us in the long run.
“To be made captain showed the amount of trust the coaching staff has in me; I have a lot of responsibility on my shoulders captaining such an institution, and hopefully I can win them the trophy.”
The Dolphins have left it until late, but they will get a chance to move up the order when they come up against Boland. The 2023/24 season runners-up have recovered well from their poor start to the campaign, and they are only trailing their opponents by two points heading into their crunch encounter.
Today’s Fixtures:
North West Dragons v Lions, Potchefstroom (2pm), Warriors v Titans, Gqeberha (6pm), Dolphins v Boland, Kingsmead (6pm).