JP Duminy feels captaincy brings out the best in him

Proteas all-rounder, JP Duminy was recently named the captain of the Cape Town Knight Riders team in the upcoming T20 Global League. The tournament is all set to kick off on November 6 and boasts of star players like Chris Gayle, Lasith Malinga amongst many others. Duminy’s position was revealed on Monday, along with the announcement that Jaques Kallis has been appointed as the coach of the team.

The 33-year-old expressed his elation at being appointed as the skipper of the team. Duminy spoke at length about how he plans to handle the captaincy role as well about the coach, Kallis. Interestingly, this is not going to be Duminy’s first stint as a T20 captain as he’s already led the Delhi Daredevils side in the Indian Premier League (IPL) two years ago.

Reacts to being appointed as the captain

Expressing his joy at the announcement, Duminy said, “I’m ecstatic. To be able to do it in front of my home crowd … it’s a huge honour to captain any team. I had the opportunity to captain my country in three T20s and captained Delhi [Daredevils] two years ago, so I had a small taste of it. I thoroughly enjoyed the responsibility and what it brings out in me as a cricketer. I think it brings out the best in me, so hopefully that will show in the performances in this tournament,” he told SACricketmag.com.

He went on to speak about Jaques Kallis, who has previously served as the coach of the Kolkata Knight Riders team in the IPL. “Because it has just been announced, we haven’t had the chance to sit down and chat about the strategy or the way we want to go about it. Unfortunately, this will be a tournament that will be a little rushed … we play a T20 series, an ODI series and a Test series against Bangladesh … so we are going to probably meet about four days before our first game,” he said.

“We are going to have to be very clued up in terms of what we want to do, how we want to play the game and what will be our formula for success. He’s had some great success with the Kolkata Knight Riders, he understands the culture of the Knight Riders family, they’ve got a team in Trinidad as well. They are obviously bringing that same support structure into this setup and I’m very privileged to be a part of it,” Duminy added.