Tony de Zorzi of Sunrisers Eastern Cape. Sportzpics
Tony de Zorzi has endured an indifferent SA20 experience.
Initially the dreadlocked left-hander was overlooked at the Season 1 draft. Fast forward to Season 2 and De Zorzi found himself opening the batting for Durban’s Super Giants.
A meagre return of 61 runs in six innings at 10.16 meant that by the time Season 3 came around De Zorzi was penguin-watching at Boulders Beach in Cape Town instead of padding up in South Africa’s premier T20 competition.
But that’s when everything changed yet again. Double-defending champions Sunrisers Eastern Cape were batting woefully, particularly at the top of the order, with England Test batter Zak Crawley enduring a nightmare couple of weeks.
A change was required, and the opportunity arose when allrounder Patrick Kruger failed his fitness test and was ruled out for the remainder of the competition.
Calls were frantically being made around the country. Which top-order batters were actually available at such short notice?
Janneman Malan’s name was thrown around. De Zorzi’s former Cape Cobras teammate has also been released by the Joburg Super Kings and could potentially fill the void.
What about Temba Bavuma? The Proteas Test and ODI skipper had anchored the Sunrisers’ top-order during their maiden SA20 championship success.
But De Zorzi had someone in his corner. Sunrisers skipper Aiden Markram had long been an admirer of the southpaw since their early days at the Titans together, and after convincing coach Adrian Birrell, the call was made.
“I didn't think I was going to play, but I'm really grateful that I got the chance and I'm grateful to Aiden and Aidie for showing faith in me because it wasn't really warranted in this format, but they gave me a lot of trust and faith,” De Zorzi said.
The belief was tested at the beginning though. Coming in fresh, De Zorzi initially failed to adjust to the pace of SA20 and suffered three consecutive failures.
Coupled with the previous season’s disappointments, the doubts were crucially beginning to creep into De Zorzi’s mind too.
“Yeah, there's definitely times where you look in the mirror and you think, maybe I must put that on the bench or put that in the cupboard,” he said.
But the Sunrisers have not won consecutive SA20 titles and are on the verge of a third without backing their players and filling them with confidence when there seems to be no light flickering at the end of the tunnel.
It reaped the desired rewards with De Zorzi delivering a match-winning 78 off 49 balls in Qualifier 2 to book the Sunrisers’ place in yet another SA20 final.
“I think Aiden and Aidie have a very cool relationship. They bounce with each other. They're both very calm individuals,” he said.
“You can never really tell if we're winning or we're under pressure. They're quite consistent human beings. I think the rest of the change room feeds off that energy.
“I think because like I said, they're both calm and they're the leaders. They give guys an opportunity to be positive and not in a fake way. It's a wholesome way.
“I'm happy I was able to repay that. So something like this, I'm very grateful to the big guy upstairs because you sometimes have those doubts, I'm not going to lie.
“So I think I'm relatively young, so I have to keep believing that I have something to give to this format and I'm glad I was able to do it at this time.
“It gives you that little bit of hope because this format is also unforgiving, so it can go the other way pretty quickly. But you need these knocks, I suppose, along the way to figure out your blueprint or figure out what works for you in that time.”
De Zorzi has one further opportunity to show that he belongs on this stage. And it's no grander than a final at the Wanderers - just a few kilometres away from where he schooled at King Edward High School (KES).
“It's crunch time, so everyone who's feeling a bit under the weather or not in form, like myself or whatever, now it starts,” he said.
“This is when it counts. And that was, I suppose, the little jeer. And having not been in the team before, you did get the feeling that the guys have done it before. There was no panic and eventually someone would step up.”