Buildnat Cape Cobras 184
Multiply Titans 185/4
Titans won by 6 wickets
PRETORIA - The Titans will host the Momentum One-Day Cup final at SuperSport Park next week after a routine win against an under-strength Cape Cobras side on Thursday night.
It’s the second time the Titans will host a limited overs final this season – after the T20 Challenge in December – and will be a welcome benefit for the coffers of the franchise.
With the likes of AB de Villiers, Chris Morris and Farhaan Behardien in their ranks, along with the emerging talent that is Aiden Markram, locals are sure to snap up tickets, regardless of who the Titans will face in next Friday’s finale to the domestic season.
The last league game of the campaign – the Titans’s fourth match in the last 12 days – was a cakewalk.
The Cobras pitched up and looked largely disinterested and a measure of the dysfunctionality into which that franchise has descended this season was the fact that four of the starting team here wore jerseys that weren’t theirs. Blue tape was used to cover up the names of the original owners.
It’s clear a massive cleanout is needed in Western Cape Cricket and it must start in the boardroom. The chaos that has reigned there this summer has filtered into the dressing-room and for large swathes of this season they’ve been a joke – just not a very funny one.
On the other side the Titans have been the pre-eminent franchise this season – winners of the T20 Challenge, runners-up, narrowly, to the Knights in the Sunfoil Series and now finalists in the One-Day Cup.
They were efficient, knowing what a win meant, although they never had to get out of second gear. The Cobras were reduced to 30/4 by the 11th over with Chris Morris and Lungi Ngidi following up their excellent performances on Tuesday against the Warriors by destroying the Cobras’ top order. Such was their aggression, Markram was even able to buy a wicket, that of left-hander Simon Khomari.
It took two partnerships, both featuring Aviwe Mgijima to stretch out the Cobras innings; first with Dane Vilas (42, 41b, 6x4) Mgijima added 61 for the fifth wicket and then in a sixth wicket stand with Dayyaan Galiem he added 65.
Mgijima himself went on to make a fighting 52 (96b, 2x4) to provide a modicum of respectability to the Cobras total, but it was woeful effort all told.
For the Titans Morris (1/21 in eight overs) and Ngidi (2/20 also in eight overs) were the stars again while Junior Dala put in a good shift to pick up 2/33.
Markram got the Titans off to a rapid start producing some exquisite stroke-play on his way to a run-a-ball 49 that included nine fours.
There was a brief wobble for the hosts as the Cobras’ on-loan leg-spinner Eddie Leie picked up three wickets – Markram, Heino Kuhn (19) and AB de Villiers (0) – but a typically composed Behardien in combination with the hard hitting Jonathan Vandiar saw the Titans to the brink of victory.
Vandiar scored 72 off 78 balls (6x4, 1x6) in an adventurous innings that earned him the man of the match award. He was out with the Titans still needing four runs for the win, but skipper Albie Morkel duly played an elegant pull off the only ball he faced to seal the deal for the home team.