Some tight bowling and magnificent fielding by the Titans prevented the Warriors from winning their first limited-overs match of the MTN domestic championship at Buffalo Park on Wednesday.
Set 214 to win, the Warriors finished on a disappointing 188 for five wickets, a tantalising 26 runs short of victory.
They will undoubtedly rue the middle overs when they allowed medium-pacer Morne Morkel to dictate matters with a miserly spell of nine overs for just 17 runs.
They will also rue the fact that they gave the Titans an extra 16 balls to face and 18 extras — a problem that the Warriors will need to sort out urgently. The Warriors were rocked back when Justin Kreusch was needlessly run out by a direct hit by Goolam Bodi when looking for a short single after he was sent back by his opening partner, Murray Goodwin.
The Zimbabwean batted solidly for his 37 but got bogged down in the 30s. His knock, however, will have given him confidence after an indifferent start in which he made 11 in his first two innings. He was dropped in the slips on 36, but the lapse did not prove expensive.
It was an adventurous HD Ackerman who gave the innings some momentum as he moved past his half-century — his first for the Warriors — with some excellent straight drives. He and Arno Jacobs added 82 off 90 balls. Jacobs had a lucky escape on 13 when he skied a mistimed pull off leg-spinner Francois du Plessis and Titans skipper Gerald Dros dropped the catch at square-leg.
With 10 overs to go, 90 were needed but the batsmen were unable to penetrate a well-set field.
The required run-rate increased dramatically with 66 needed in the final five overs.
Ackerman then slammed Brendon Reddy for a huge six, to keep the small crowd on the edge of their seats.
He finished on 73 off 90 balls with six fours and a six, but he was bowled with only two balls remaining in the innings.
Earlier the Titans’s innings imploded with six wickets falling in double-quick time for a paltry 24 runs as the visitors were seeking to up their run-rate.
Both Du Plessis and Dros were taking runs at will against a Warriors attack lacking any venom.
But Brent Kops’s final over changed matters drastically. The two batsmen had made up their minds to attack but things went awry when Du Plessis was caught on the boundary off the fifth ball of Kops’s over after playing a most responsible innings of 80 off 107 balls.
He hit seven boundaries and a six in his knock but had some fortune when he survived a catch behind the wicket off Kops when he had scored 24.
Wicketkeeper Abongile Sodumo grassed a sitter which went in and out of his gloves and it proved an expensive mistake as Du Plessis became the backbone of the innings.
Thereafter an impressive Lyall Meyer and Mornantau Hayward wrapped up the innings with only Dros, with 33 attractive runs, making any sizeable contribution.
Earlier Johann Myburgh with 29 and Bodi with 25 got the Titans off to a steady start.
Meyer grabbed two wickets in two successive overs, including a magnificent catch off his own bowling to get rid of dangerman Albie Morkel for a duck, and he finished with his career-best limited-overs figures of 5-42 off nine overs. Hayward captured 2-38 off his nine and the Titans were restricted to 213 for nine wickets in their 45 overs. Du Plessis was named as man of the match for his 80. – Sapa