The Titans took a huge step to retaining their Supersport Series title — which they shared last season with the Dolphins — when they beat the Highveld Lions by seven wickets in their match at Sedgars Park on Saturday.
The Titans, needing 178 for victory to maintain their grip at the top of the table, had restricted the Lions to 327 in their second innings, thanks to the endeavours of the Morkel brothers — Morne and Albie — and Alfonso Thomas, who took three wickets apiece.
The visitors lost three wickets in the search for a result, but victory was set up by a fourth-wicket partnership of 73 runs between Martin van Jaarsveld and Goolam Bodi.
When the players walked off the park, Van Jaarsveld was unbeaten on 54 struck off 113 balls, which included seven boundaries, and Bodi was undefeated on 41.
Earlier, Lions captain Neil McKenzie and Vaughan van Jaarsveld — who resumed on their overnight scores of 14 and 18 respectively — did very little to advance the total, with both batsmen succumbing to the pace of Morne Morkel for the identical score of 24.
Matthew Harris and Werner Coetsee dug deep to add 97 for the sixth wicket, but the partnership was brought to a grinding halt when Morne Morkel induced Harris to edge a delivery to wicketkeeper Heino Kuhn, five runs short of his half-century.
As in most significant partnerships, Coetsee followed soon afterwards, caught by Pierre de Bruyn off Thomas. The Lions spinner had struck seven fours and a six in a 110-ball 62.
Eleven runs later, Thomas and Albie Morkel had mopped up the tail for 327. The total should have been below the 300 mark, but the Morkel brothers were guilty of conceding 33 extras between them by way of 14 no-balls and 19 wides.
Dolphins staring down the barrel
In Durban, the KwaZulu-Natal Dolphins were staring down the barrel of an innings defeat on the final day on Sunday as they need a further 242 runs to prevent the Diamond Eagles taking maximum points from their match at the Sahara Stadium, Kingsmead.
At close of play on Saturday, the Dolphins had 97 for the loss of three wickets in their follow-on innings after they had been dismissed in their first knock for 236 in reply to the Eagles’ total of 575 for eight declared.
At that stage they were still 242 runs shy of making the Eagles bat a second time.
Tormentor-in-chief for the Dolphins was left-arm spinner Nicky Boje — assisted by and large by Vincent Tshabalala — as he claimed four for 61 off 17 overs in the first knock by the KwaZulu-Natal men and another one for 12 in nine overs thus far in the second innings.
From the very outset it was a battle for survival by the Dolphins’ batsmen, especially after the encouraging fifth-wicket stand between Imraan Khan (75) and Morne van Vuuren (43).
Khan again showed dogged determination in his second trip to the wicket with a gutsy 37 not out. That gave him 60 runs in all for the day after he had started off on his overnight total of 52 not out.
The Eagles’ bid for a quick dismissal of the Dolphins before lunch in their first innings was thwarted by another stubborn stand for the ninth wicket as Johann Louw (36) and Yusuf Abdullah (37) defied the spinners and the wiles of pacemen Johan van der Wath and Ryan McLaren, who between them snapped up five first-innings wickets.
In their second innings, the Dolphins began badly losing their first two wickets for 22, but then Khan and skipper Ahmed Amla (30) combined to add 78 before Boje struck a vital blow as Boeta Dippenaar held a fine slip catch to dismiss the KwaZulu-Natal captain.
After two days of glorious sunshine on Thursday and Friday, it was back to the norm at Kingsmead on Saturday as nine overs were left unbowled because of fading light. — Sapa