Had Northerns Titans captain Gerald Dros been offered a choice of victory margins at SuperSport Park on Wednesday night, he would have looked a little surprised at the suggestion that they would beat Eastern Province Jumbos by nine wickets in their opening game of the Standard Bank Series.
After all, the late sundowner drinks were still being quaffed in the chalets around the ground and a crowd of more than 4 000 enjoyed a balmy evening as the Titans gave an impressive performance to get their day/night programme off to the best possible start.
Dismissing the visitors for 131 runs in 38,4 overs and then rattling off the total in less that 20 overs was a bit of a hiding for an outplayed Jumbos squad.
As Carl Bradfield, the Jumbos captain suggested after the defeat, it was the sort of start to the season that he and the side would like to forget. The top order failed to put a partnership together and they all indulged in far too many flashy strokes for their own good. They paid the penalty and had a couple of difficult catches been held, the visitors would have been lucky to reach their eventual total.
It could have been 61/6 and the tail, looming ominously as Eastern Province Jumbos all but capitulated. Whether they missed Kepler Wessels, their coach — who was cleared of racism charges earlier in the day — is another matter. It was not a good performance from a side of whom much was expected. At 97/7 there was no real way back and the innings folded as meekly as an aged bull elephant breathing his last.
For Northerns it was a particularly sanguine performance with the Titans a bowler short when all-rounder Justin Kemp was forced to withdraw after an attack of bronchitis shortly before the match, forcing a late change in the Titans gameplan. Young AB de Villiers was brought into the team to make his domestic senior limited overs debut and give the top order some muscle. Dros had to step in
and take charge of the Kemp role as the extra seamer.
What did work for Northerns was how Ethy Mbhalati bowled his nine overs in one spell, and his three wickets did much to blow a hole in the Jumbos top-order; his eventual figures of 9-3-26-3 were a solid effort and he looked a complete bowler compared to Mfuneko Ngam and Mornantau Hayward. Ngam went for 39 runs in 6,2 overs and alarmingly he gave away two no-balls in what was the last over to give the Titans an easy victory well before the innings reached what would have been the halfway stage.
With Mbhalati keeping pressure on the Jumbos top order and Robin Peterson falling victim to his own folly of trying to take on the Northerns attack, the visitors were always going to battle to put a competitive total on the board.
As it was, De Villiers displayed his quality when he played some handsome drives off Ngam; Hayward was removed from the attack after conceding an extra eight balls in his two overs while giving away 12 runs.
Alviro Petersen 51 (64 balls 9×4) and Jacques Rudolph (28 not out off 26 balls 6×4) put together 61 for the unbroken second wicket after De Villiers was run out for 28.
While Northerns have at least learnt to win again, the Jumbos need to take a serious look at their gameplan as they have a lot of work ahead of them if they hope to compete. Northerns always looked professional and that made the dfference. — Sapa