Sunrisers Eastern Cape vs Pretoria Capitals Predictions - De Kock to demolish the ailing Capitals

The Sunrisers have won three and lost two of their last five Big Bash matches against the Capitals. They won their last match against them by 52 runs back in January 2025.

The Sunrisers’ new squad got off to a flying start to their SA20 campaign, beating the Royals by a massive 137 runs.

Quinton de Kock continued his great international whiteball form by getting the Sunrisers off to a flying start before holing out looking for his third six. Jonny Bairstow (31) and Matthew Breetzke (31) both got good time in the middle, before a phenomenal 28-ball 62* from Jordan Hermann lifted their score to 186/4 off their 20 overs. 

Marco Jansen (1/15, econ 5.00) and Adam Milne (2/7, econ 3.50) reduced the Royals to 10/3, with Tharindu Ratnayake (2/9, econ 3.17) chipping in with the valuable wicket of David Miller, but it was Anrich Nortje who kept the carnage going with the ball, returning figures of 4/13 (econ 4.33).

After losing the last three games of their 2024/25 campaign, the Capitals made a losing start to the 2025/26 SA20 when they went down to the Super Kings by 22 runs.

Tymal Mills (2/17, econ 4.25) and Codi Yusuf (2/29, econ 7.25) kept the Super Kings tight up front, aided by a fine spell from Keshav Maharaj (0/31, econ 7.75). Their other three bowlers (Lungi Ngidi, Roston Chase and Bryce Parsons) all went for over 10.50 to the over, which is an area they need to tighten up on. 

Will Smeed (34) and Bryce Parsons (41) got the innings to a slow but steady start, but the rest of the top six failed to reach double figures as they scratched their way to 146/9 off their 20 overs. 

Sunrisers’ paceman Anrich Nortje was excited to be making a big impact in T20 cricket with the T20 World Cup on the horizon. 

"You've got to trust your body. When something's wrong then it's probably too late but, in general, you have to trust your body. You have to trust whatever you have to do in order to get the ball in the right area and you've got to know that the work that you do is the right work. There's always cricket so you've just got to try and remember as much as you can from last season and then take it into the next one," said Nortje after their opening win.

Capitals skipper Keshav Maharaj admitted that his bowling line-up had struggled to contain the Super Kings, possibly from a lack of time together as a team. 

"We gave maybe 10-15 runs too much away on a wicket that was a bit spicy, but we brought it back really nicely. We sort of lost our way in the middle phase with the bat and should have probably been a little bit more consistent with our lengths, maybe things might have been different if we rectify that. Not ideal to start this way, but we need to iron out the cobwebs ahead of the next game," said Maharaj.

Sunrisers Eastern Cape (possible XI): Jonny Bairstow, Quinton de Kock (wk), Matthew Breetzke, Jordan Hermann, Tristan Stubbs (c), Marco Jansen, Senuran Muthusamy, Lewis Gregory, Tharindu Rathnayake, Anrich Nortje, Adam Milne.

Pretoria Capitals (possible XI): Will Smeed, Bryce Parsons, Shai Hope, Daniel Smith (wk), Dewald Brevis, Connor Esterhuizen, Roston Chase, Codi Yusuf, Keshav Maharaj (c), Lungi Ngidi, Tymal Mills.