Massive cross-Jukskei derby to close out local cricket season

2026-03-27 - 11:10

A massive cross-Jukskei derby will see the Lions host the Titans in the CSA One Day Cup final at the Wanderers on Sunday to close out the 2025-26 local cricket season. Since things kicked off back in September last year, the three main competitions have been battled out, with the Warriors beating Boland in the final to win the CSA T20 Challenge, followed by the Lions beating the Warriors in the final to triumph in the CSA four day series. A cracking finale is now on the cards as the fierce Highveld rivals will go all out to see who reigns supreme on the 50-over front. The Lions will head into the final with plenty of confidence after finishing unbeaten in the pool phase to top of the One Day Cup log, with five wins and two rained out no results in their seven matches. They will thus be aiming to complete an unbeaten campaign against the Titans, who they thrashed by 120 runs in a rain affected pool game just under two weeks ago. The Titans finished third on the log and thus had to travel to Gqeberha to face the second placed Warriors in a qualifier on Wednesday and emerged with a solid six-wicket win, so they will also go into the final with confidence. Excited Titans Titans wicketkeeper-batter Keagan Lion-Cachet, who scored a maiden list A half century during a man-of-the-match showing against the Warriors, said that they were excited to face their closest rivals in the trophy match. “It was quite a close qualifier. But throughout the tournament we have had a good mindset towards what we want to achieve. So I think the team’s confidence going into the final will be quite high,” said Lion-Cachet. “The boys will go back and reflect on if there are any bad things (from the qualifier) we need to work on. But we are very excited for the final and will give it our all.” With rain having been about recently, the teams will be aware that they could be in for another shortened DLS decided encounter in the final, and Lion-Cachet says they will be ready if that happens. “You can’t do anything about the rain. It’s something you have to take into consideration when playing the sport. You manage to deal with it and learn how to get past the things you can’t control and come up with a plan,” explained Lion-Cachet. “So it’s nothing to stress about. Hopefully the final is a full 100-over game and we will just have to see how it goes.”