One of Dane Piedt’s favourite movie character’s is Danny Ocean.
For those who are familiar with the movie “Ocean's Eleven” is it not hard to understand why the Cape Cobras captain would take a liking to the leader of a group of thieves whose primary objective is to rob three Las Vegas casinos.
Wikipedia describes Danny Ocean as a “calm, down-to-earth, charming personality, intelligent, creative, affable and highly organised”. And for those who know Piedt, he shares many similar similar characteristics, and just like Ocean, he too is leading his Cobras XI in attempting a heist of similar epic proportions.
The only difference being that instead of trying to rob a bank, the Cobras are attempting to steal the Sunfoil Series title from under the noses of more fancied challengers.
Considering the Cobras were languishing in last spot and had yet to win a game before Piedt took over the captaincy at the beginning of the year it could just be makings of the perfect Hollywood script.
“From the moment I was handed the armband, I went to our coach (Ashwell Prince) and told Ash that we winning this whole thing,” Piedt told Independent Media on Tuesday. “I said, look last year is a thing of the past, and we’re lucky nobody has run away with it yet, so we going to give it our best shot. We’ve got the quality in our side, we just need the belief, and now that all the guys are pulling in the same direction again, I know we can do it.”
Mathematically the Cobras can certainly still pull it off, although it will take a momentous effort as they face the league-leaders, the Knights, in Paarl this weekend before travelling to Durban to face second-placed Dolphins at Kingsmead.
“It’s worked out brilliantly,” an uber-positive Piedt said. “We face the two top teams so that means we can take points off them and prevent them from going further ahead. Our destiny is in our own hands and that’s just the way we want it.”
Piedt’s confidence stems from an amazing nine-wicket victory over the defending champions, the Titans, last weekend and an earlier victory over the Highveld Lions in Oudtshoorn when only 14 balls were remaining in the match.
Equally, the Cobras welcome back new Proteas-capped opening bowler Dane Paterson for this weekend’s crucial encounter at Boland Park while local spinner Kyle Simmonds has also been added to the squad. Former South Africa U/19 seam bowler Lizaad Williams, who was impressive on his return to the Cobras at SuperSport Park, has been released to the University of Western Cape for Varsity Cup week.
“Kyle has been called up as we want to prepared for any conditions that we might encounter in Paarl,” Piedt said. “I was really happy with Lizaad last weekend, he really showed his true potential because it wouldn’t have been easy coming into franchise cricket after such a long break, but Patto (Paterson) is an international and he has to come back into the side. It’s great to have all these options available to you as a captain.”