Ken Borland

The two teams who have lost just one game in the Sunfoil Series this season – the bizhub Highveld Lions and the Sunfoil Dolphins – clash in a crunch match at the Wanderers from today, but one of the most important games of the tournament will also be played in Port Elizabeth, where the Chevrolet Warriors and the Unlimited Titans meet.

While the log-leading Lions will be desperate to reverse the trend of the other two domestic competitions in which they led at the halfway mark before fainting before the finish line to not even make the finals, the Titans and the Warriors, second and third, are probably the two most in-form teams in the country at the moment.

While the Titans won the Momentum One-Day Cup from a position they had no right to win from, the Warriors have won six of their last seven matches in both the 50-over and four-day competitions.

There will be no Albie Morkel for the Titans at St George’s Park, however, as the hero of the Momentum One-Day Cup final recovers from a side-strain, while Jacques Rudolph, contracted for the one-day competition, will play no further part in the domestic season.

It’s no major issue for the Titans because they will still field a powerful top-order of Dean Elgar, Heino Kuhn and Theunis de Bruyn.

Mangaliso Mosehle will continue to don the wicketkeeper’s gloves despite his messy showing in the final and his poor form with the bat.

“We back Mangi to come good, he had a good start to the four-day competition,” coach Rob Walter told The Citizen yesterday.

The Titans also have plenty of bowling options, including David Wiese and Junior Dala, two players who did so much to ensure the Momentum One-Day Cup is now housed at SuperSport Park.

The final selection is going to be a tough choice for Walter, with wrist-spinners Shaun von Berg and Tabraiz Shamsi, left-arm seamer Rowan Richards, Dala and Ethy Mbhalati all competing for three spots.

Walter said the triumph in the Newlands final had now been put aside and the Titans are hungry for a second trophy.

“We’re certainly not resting on our laurels, although we’ll use that momentum from the One-Day Cup, and we’re very driven to shoot for that second trophy,” the coach said.

The injured trio of pacemen Aya Gqamane and Rusty Theron, as well as senior batsman Davy Jacobs, are not available for the Warriors, but the recent form of Colin Ingram and Michael Price with the bat bodes well for the home side, while Andrew Birch and Simon Harmer will be the key performers with the ball.

The other match sees the Chevrolet Knights hosting the Nashua Cape Cobras, the defending champions, at the Diamond Oval in Kimberley in a match-up between the two bottom sides on the log.

The Cobras are still trying to get over the manner in which they lost the Momentum One-Day Cup final to the Titans, and the four-prong Knights pace attack of Quinton Friend, Corne Dry, Malusi Siboto and Dillon du Preez is sure to increase the pressure on them.

The Unlimited Titans give their fans a hard time with their inconsistent performances, but when it really matters, they perform and Rob Walter, the coach of the newly-crowned Momentum One-Day Cup winners, says he wouldn’t want it any other way.

The Titans claimed the Momentum One-Day Cup title with an incredible win over the Nashua Cape Cobras in the final at Newlands at the weekend, pegging the home side back to 285 for eight after they were 170 without loss after 30 overs, and then chasing down the target, thanks to magnificent centuries from Dean Elgar and Albie Morkel, with 17 balls to spare despite being 60 for four in the 15^th over.

“It would be great to totally dominate finals and win, but as a coach you’d much rather see your team manage to find a way out of significant pressure as we did in both innings. It’s a sign of a good team, it shows we’re moving in the right direction and it shows great things about the team. We never gave up, we showed awesome character,” Walter told The Citizen on Monday.

It was the superb batting of Elgar and Morkel that pulled the Titans through when all looked lost and Walter was full of praise for the pair of experienced left-handers.

Full report – http://citizen.co.za/328149/titans-step-really-matters/

Albie Morkel’s top-class century to win the Momentum One-Day Cup final for the Unlimited Titans was not only a dream come true for the all-rounder but also a strong reminder to coaches that being a brilliant finisher does not mean a batsman should be consigned to a role only in the closing overs of a limited-overs match.

Morkel came to the crease in the final at Newlands with the Titans in trouble on 60 for four chasing 286, but he and Dean Elgar, who also scored a century, shared a record-breaking partnership of 195 off 189 balls to set up a phenomenal victory which the veteran finished off in style with a magnificent 134 not out off 103 balls.

“It was a big day in my life, I was quite emotional but I kept it deep inside on the field. Coach Rob Walter and I had discussed at the start of the season what’s left for me in my career and I reset my goals. One of them was to score a 50-over century and another was to be man of the match in a final.

“Batting at six or seven, you don’t often get the opportunity to score a hundred, it has to be quick, but to do it in a final and to be man of the match, both of them together was really special, a dream come true. I scratched around a bit at the beginning, but then something clicked and I just seemed to be in the zone, my senses all became so clear and I was seeing the ball really well,” Morkel told The Citizen on Monday.

The left-hander’s innings was similar to that of David Miller’s in South Africa’s World Cup opener against Zimbabwe and Morkel said he hoped these performances helped convince coaches to give so-called power-hitters a greater piece of the action.

“With the new batting powerplay and only four fielders allowed out at the end, coaches tend to keep key batsmen back for that but I’ve never understood it because as a batsman you like to get in and you need the opportunity to do that. Your success rate drops when you have less time at the crease and David Miller showed what can be done when you give a batsman enough time and don’t keep him back.

“Both David and I came in in a situation where the team was in big trouble, but it gives you the luxury to just go in and bat. I knew I must just not get out, I must be there at the end and then you can really cash in,” Morkel said.

The 33-year-old also showed the value of his experience in a Titans side full of youngsters and Morkel said he is determined to return the franchise to the heights of the mid-to-late 2000s, when they won seven domestic trophies.

“The Titans needed that win because we’ve had a seesaw season and it was even more important for the changeroom because obviously they will now believe they can win more trophies. I still want to play my best cricket, in the past I made the mistake of putting too much emphasis on getting into the national team. My focus now is on getting myself back to my best form and winning games for the Titans. That’s where the enjoyment comes, in that changeroom environment.

“At this stage, I’m playing the role of a senior, there are lots of young guys coming through and they need a lot of help. I often chat with David Wiese and the young bowlers,” Morkel said.

Dale Steyn became the quickest to 400 Test wickets in terms of the number of deliveries bowled at the weekend and former Proteas star and Highveld Lions stalwart Neil McKenzie had some advice for the many batsmen who have fallen to the great fast bowler’s skills and the many who will try and play him in future.

McKenzie, who played 58 Tests and occasionally crossed swords with Steyn on the domestic circuit, said the key to facing the fiery 32-year-old lay in punishing the few bad balls that come your way and being able to handle the short-pitched delivery.

“Of course the batsman is always up against it against Dale, but if you can jump all over the occasional bad ball that comes your way then it helps release the pressure. You’ve also got to be able to play the short ball well because Dale uses that a lot. He has more of a skiddy bouncer, but he uses it to take away the batsman’s feet and the follow-up ball or two deliveries later is often the one that gets the wicket. So the feet have to be working well,” McKenzie told The Citizen.

The scorer of more than 19 000 first-class runs and maker of centuries in England, India, Bangladesh, the Netherlands, Zimbabwe, New Zealand, Australia, Sri Lanka and South Africa said what made Steyn special as a bowler was his ability to even be a threat on true batting pitches.

“What makes Dale such a great bowler is that he has weapons for whatever pitch, whatever the conditions are. If the pitch is seaming, he can obviously use that, if there’s bounce he uses that, if there’s swing he’s a master of moving it both ways, both conventional and reverse swing. If the pitch is slow or flat, then he has the skills to still be dangerous. That’s the ultimate bowler, McKenzie said.