Justin Kemp Returns as Cape Cobras Captain; Promises to Deliver with Steyn, Gibbs, Duminy

Justin Kemp played just one season in the IPL for the Chennai Super Kings. He now returns to play the Champions League Twenty20 2011 – which he did not for Chennai – as the Cape Cobras captain who realizes that his team may not be the favourites but that they have enough firepower to make a serious dent on perceptions.

Justin Kemp

The Champions League Twenty20 has seen the Cape Cobras before with Andrew Puttick serving as captain. However, the Cape Cobras have another stab at the Champions League Twenty20 in 2011 with a captain who knows something about playing in Indian conditions. Justin Kemp played for the Chennai Super Kings in the IPL 3 season although he was not picked for the CLT20 squad thereafter. Even then he was not able to play to full potential, having suffered a back spasm.

Now after an arduous few years in international cricket that saw him lose out on cricket duties for South Africa after signing up with the Hyderabad Heroes in the Indian Cricket League (ICL), Kemp is reliving some of those dreams through captaining the Cape Cobras in the Champions League Twenty20 2011. Although Kemp was amongst the thirty probables for South Africa’s ICC World Twenty20 squad, he failed to make the cut with a supposed injury thereby, missing representing South Africa once more.

But Kemp has a strong team to lead in the 2011 edition of the Champions League Twenty20 2011 although his team finds itself in arguably the tougher of the two groups in the main edition. Kemp, himself an all rounder, will have the services of South Africa’s fast bowler, Dale Steyn, with explosive batsman, Herschelle Gibbs, also part of the squad although no longer in the reckoning for the South African squad. In JP Duminy and Justin Ontong, the Cape Cobras have a fair bit of resources and with Robin Peterson also in the midst, their spin options could come handy as well. Given the kind of competition in the group, Kemp realizes that this will not be easy by any stretch of the imagination. However, having experienced the Champions League Twenty20 once more in the Indian sub continent, the Cape Cobras appear to have come with a better squad, with a few internationally experienced members that could prove decisive in tight matches.

For the likes of Justin Kemp and others who have missed lucrative IPL deals, the Champions League Twenty20 is also an ideal opportunity to step up their game and show once more their capabilities that certainly merit consideration at the IPL 5 auctions. Although those will be some of the more personal goals, as a team, Cape Cobras will be looking to make a stronger impact that they did on the previous occasion that they participated. But it is going to take some of these rather well known players to turn their A game on and make sure they announce themselves strongly when they face the formidable New South Wales Blues who won the Champions League Twenty20 2009 edition.