Ken Borland

Kagiso Rabada endured a 39-month break between five-wicket hauls before taking five for 34 on Saturday to wrap up an innings win for the Proteas in the first Test against the West Indies, but the fast bowler said even though he was relieved to end that dry spell, the failure to notch the statistical landmark was not frustrating for him.

“Cricket is a game where you’re measured by the highest accolades like scoring hundreds or taking five and 10-fors, so you always strive to do that, but it’s not like you’re looking for that or desperate for it because sometimes you can bowl really well and not get any wickets. It’s an old cliché but they do tend to repeat themselves.

“Unfortunately I haven’t been able to do the five-for thing for the last couple of years but I knew I just had to be consistent in my preparation. But I am quite relieved to get it, it’s like scoring a hundred, who wouldn’t be happy? I was really glad with my performance, but without the support of my team-mates this wouldn’t have happened.

“With Lungi Ngidi and Anrich Nortje bowling exceptionally well and the batsmen coming to the party and putting runs on the board, this makes it easier for me. I just try and control what I can control and the cricketing gods were smiling at me today,” Rabada said after his 10^th five-wicket haul in just 46 Tests.

He is the seventh South African to join that club and he said the Proteas, by returning to basics and playing as a team, were ruthless as they battered the West Indies into submission.

“This game can be unforgiving but we have just tried to be consistent in our preparation and we’ve established how we want to play. And we stick to that. And if you do that then luck tends to be on your side more often than not. In previous games we were probably lacking in important periods, we let the game slip away. We would be good in patches and at other times quite sloppy.

“We’ve identified the moments in the past when we slackened off and in this Test we kept our foot on the throttle. We are a young team, we are rebuilding, and we will take a lot of confidence from this performance. We must keep building on what we have established in this Test and we will stick to our processes and not take anything for granted,” Rabada said.

There may have been two days of rain, but Dolphins captain Marques Ackerman said he knew that on a typically dry Kingsmead deck, his spin duo of Prenelan Subrayen and Senuran Muthusamy would still win them the game in the 4-Day Domestic Series final which ended in Durban on Monday.

And so it proved in extraordinary fashion as off-spinner Subrayen (10 for 80 in 60 overs) and slow left-armer Muthusamy (nine for 91 in 42.5 overs) shared an unprecedented 19 wickets (the other dismissal was a run out) as the Titans were hammered by an innings and 76 runs, including being bowled out for their lowest ever total – 53 – in the first innings.

“I’m being dead honest when I say that even with only three days left in the game, not once was there any talk about the draw. We said from the start that we were going to win the match and not share the trophy, that was the unbelievable positive energy and mindset in the changeroom. Everyone was just so goal-driven and with so much bad light usually in play here, we normally only play three days so we knew how to win.

“We knew on this pitch that if we batted well then that would bring our spinners into the game, and so credit to Sarel Erwee, whose hundred put us on the front foot. The quality of our spinners was vital and their control was exceptional. They are world-class and I hope that gets recognised soon. Their groupings are so good, they test the batsman’s technique all the time, both edges, and they have impeccable skills,” Ackerman said on Monday.

The 25-year-old Ackerman said the Dolphins’ first outright win in the franchise four-day competition, in the last game of the franchise era, was a credit to all the players, staff and administrators at Kingsmead.

“This win was all about the people who do all the admin, the people who look after the things behind closed doors, the staff who look after all the small things, the groundsman and our sponsors who are the best, and not just the players. We’re all really stoked to finish the season this way and for the trophy not to be shared is a great end of the Dolphins journey.

“We knew we had the talent to win the four-day competition but we knew we had to put a lot of hard effort into it, we had to make changes. That was the little flame, we didn’t even have a team song, so we created the team culture we needed in red-ball cricket. I don’t think many people realise how hard it is to win the four-day tournament,” Ackerman said.

The Unlimited Titans won the toss and batted first on a dry, brown pitch at SuperSport Park yesterday, but failed to take full advantage of the friendly conditions, scoring 268 for six on the first day of their Sunfoil Series match against the Warriors.

The total was built around two impressive partnerships: opener Theunis de Bruyn and captain Henry Davids adding 108 in two hours for the second wicket, and debutant Grant Thomson and rookie Cobus Pienaar putting on 73 off 160 balls for the sixth wicket.

Thomson and Pienaar steadied the Titans after they had lost three wickets for 11 runs, batting for just over an hour-and-a-half, but Thomson was unable to see off the second new ball, edging Basheer Walters to third slip to fall for 40, a tenacious innings that was most valuable to his team.

The Titans have spent much of the campaign in inward reflection over their batting failures, but they seemed set to produce a sizeable total in their last game of the season as Theunis de Bruyn and Henry Davids took them to 128 for one midway through the second session.

They came together after Ernest Kemm had been dismissed for seven by Walters, and by lunch they had added 71 to take the total to 91 for one.

De Bruyn, the 21-year-old Tukkies star, has only previously played two T20 games for the Titans, scoring 53 not out on debut and then 23. He reached another half-century yesterday by hitting off-spinner Simon Harmer for three fours in his second over of the day.

De Bruyn, who played with impressive assurance in scoring 79 in just short of three hours at the crease, collecting 11 fours, mostly through the off-side, was eventually dismissed by the combination of a fine delivery from Walters and a brilliant one-handed catch by Ryan Bailey at slip.

Davids, for the first time in this campaign, looked like the king of the crease as he moved to 60 – his first half-century of the 2013/14 Sunfoil Series – off 116 balls before becoming over-confident and trying to drive Andrew Birch on the up.

The seamer was bowling from the West Lane End, from which deliveries holding up and popping off the pitch had been one of the features, and Davids’ ill-judged stroke merely presented a comfortable return catch to Birch.

Harmer then trapped Qaasim Adams lbw for 23 with a delivery that kept low – although the batsman should have been forward instead of back, and the Titans slipped to 180 for five when Mangaliso Mosehle was dismissed for just 3.

The ability of part-time left-arm spinner Jon-Jon Smuts to take important wickets has been one of the features of the Warriors season and he removed Mosehle with his fifth delivery, a well-executed arm-ball.

But Thomson, making his franchise debut, and Pienaar, playing just his seventh Sunfoil Series game, proved a powerful syndicate as they ensured that honours finished even after the first day.

Pienaar has done more than enough this season to ink his name into the Titans’ future plans, and the left-hander finished the day on 48 not out, also showing great determination.

Walters was the bowler who troubled the Titans’ batsmen the most, ending the day with fine figures of three for 36 in 18 overs.