Sunrisers Eastern Cape is a South African professional Twenty20 franchise cricket team that competes in the SA20 tournament. The team is based in Gqeberha, and was formed in 2022. The team's home-ground is St George's Park Cricket Ground. The team is coached by Adrian Birrell. The franchise is owned by the Indian SUN Group.
In August 2022, Cricket South Africa announced the establishment of the SA20, a Twenty20 Cricket competition to be started in 2023. The teams for the competition, representing six cities, including the Eastern Cape, were put up on auction in September 2022. The franchise is owned by Kalanithi Maran of the Sun Group.
They were the champions of the first season of the tournament after they beat Pretoria Capitals by four wickets in the final at the Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg. Having successfully lead the team to their inaugural SA20 title, Markram was later appointed as the captain of Sunrisers Hyderabad for the 2023 season of the IPL.
The Sunrisers defended their title to become champions for a second time. They beat Durban's Super Giants by 89 runs in the final at Cape Town.
The season started poorly, with the Sunrisers losing their first three games, and after four games they were bottom of the log. However, they finished strongly, ending in third place and qualifying for the Eliminator. In the knockout rounds, they defeated Joburg Super Kings in the Eliminator and then Paarl Royals in the 2nd Qualifier. However, they were comprehensively defeated by MI Cape Town in the final.
From the Wikipedia article "Sunrisers Eastern Cape", available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
