Ken Borland

Never mind digging themselves into a hole, the Unlimited Titans managed to bowl and misfield their way into a massive ditch as they succumbed to a two-wicket defeat with a ball to spare at the hands of the Eastern Cape Warriors in the Momentum One-Day Cup season-opener at SuperSport Park in Centurion on Friday night.

The Titans had batted well enough after losing the toss, a late surge by Grant Thomson and Qaasim Adams taking them to 327 for four in their 50 overs. But the Warriors chased down a record 354 to win the corresponding fixture last season and the Titans were once again dreadful with the ball, conceding 24 extras, including 17 wides, during the innings.

History looked likely to repeat itself during the second-wicket stand of 133 off 126 balls between Jon-Jon Smuts and Yaseen Vallie, with opener Smuts in complete control as he blazed 101 off just 74 balls with 14 fours and two sixes.

But the game of cricket showed her tendency to turn things on their head as, from 160 for one in the 24^th over, the Warriors slumped to 230 for six in the 41^st as the Titans mounted Operation Fightback.

Smuts had been absolutely clinical in putting away the many loose offerings of the Titans bowlers, but when Ethy Mbhalati finally managed to find a good line just outside off stump, Smuts tried to cut too close to his body and edged through to wicketkeeper Mangaliso Mosehle.

Leg-spinner Shaun von Berg removed Clyde Fortuin for eight and Junior Dala made two important incisions when he had a composed Vallie caught skying a hook for 52 and had Somila Seyibokwe caught at third man for 23.

Captain Henry Davids claimed an important wicket for the Titans when he had the dangerous Christiaan Jonker caught at deep square-leg for 15, Rowan Richards judging a steepler well, and the home side would have thought a required run-rate of 10.50 runs per over would be too much for Simon Harmer and Andrew Birch at number seven and eight in the order.

But both showed enough ability for them to be considered as all-rounders in the future as they lashed 89 off the next 50 balls, the Titans bowlers generally failing to go for the blockhole, as Harmer and Birch swung merrily at length deliveries. Several fielding errors also cost the home side crucial runs, exacerbating the two lives that Smuts had earlier been given on 25 and 55.

The Warriors needed just 14 off the last two overs for another sensational chase at SuperSport Park and victory seemed assured when Birch hit the first ball of the penultimate over, bowled by Dala, for four.

But the unconventional fast bowler provided some hope for the Titans as he trapped Harmer lbw for 42 off 35 balls, Mother Cricket playing her games again as he seemed to edge a delivery angled down the leg-side into his pads.

Only two more runs came off a superb over and left-armer Rowan Richards heightened the drama when he conceded only five runs off the first four balls of the final over, only for Basheer Walters to lash the penultimate ball through extra cover for the winning boundary.

Birch finished with 55 not out, needing only 28 balls for his remarkable innings, which included five fours and three sixes.

The Titans, having been sent in to bat, promoted Mosehle to open the innings with Davids, but the wicketkeeper was kept firmly in his shell by a superb opening spell by Walters, who had him dropped on one.

Birch removed Davids for 20 in the ninth over and Theunis de Bruyn looked in fine form as he breezed to 26 before edging Sisanda Magala into the gloves of wicketkeeper Fortuin.

Mosehle was just beginning to get into his stride when he was bowled by impressive off-spinner Harmer for 49 off 81 deliveries, but Dean Elgar showed fine intuition in terms of shot-selection and placement as he cruised to 57 off 59 balls.

Thomson, making his Momentum One-Day Cup debut at the age of 27, also showed great awareness of the match situation as he was positive from the outset, racing to 50 off 39 balls and finishing with a wonderful 98 not out off 71 balls.

Adams has become the remorseless finisher for the Titans and he did his job again, smashing 65 not out off 39 balls as he and Thomson plundered 119 runs from the last 11.4 overs.

But as well as the Titans batted, they really did not get with the programme in the field and coach Rob Walter will no doubt have cast a thoroughly disapproving eye on the dropped catches and misfields, as well as the bowlers’ tendency to bowl on both sides of the wicket and their poor lengths at the death.

They’re going to be spluttering into their gin and tonics at the Marylebone Cricket Club after England’s humiliating start to the World Cup, but it’s no more than they deserve after all the boardroom shenanigans that have been going on in the so-called home of the game.

It’s amazing how English cricket has managed to marry such smugness and superiority with such abysmal performances on the field of play, but it makes every hiding they receive in the World Cup even more pleasurable.

I generally don’t enjoy seeing sportsmen humiliated on the field of play, but I’ll make an exception in this case because of the thoroughly distasteful manner in which the England and Wales Cricket Board went to the dodgy lair of Narayanaswami Srinivasan and ingratiated themselves into the so-called “Big Three” that have hijacked the game.

My biggest bone of contention with the Big Three is that they seek to monopolise the game for their own benefit and are actively trying to halt the progress of the up-and-coming Associate nations by removing them from future World Cups. As veteran Ireland opener Ed Joyce pointed out, cricket is the only sport which is trying to contract its World Cup, while every other sport on the planet (yes, even American Football) is trying to expand its reach.

As the ANC, and the National Party before them, are showing so clearly, concentrating all the riches in the hands of an elite minority can only put a country or a sport on the road to destruction.

England will be the venue for the next World Cup, in 2019, and it is set to be a 10-team tournament. There’s little doubt that English cricket, having plundered talent from this country for so long, stand to benefit if the likes of Ireland and Scotland are barred from the highest echelon of the game; their top players will surely be tempted to play for England, just like their current captain, Eoin Morgan. England clearly need some reinforcements.

That the Associates and minnow nations like Zimbabwe and Bangladesh are adding value to the game’s global showpiece cannot be doubted. Zimbabwe did themselves proud against South Africa, Ireland have already beaten the West Indies and Scotland did substantially better against New Zealand than England.

The plucky United Arab Emirates have some elegant batsmen and a genuine quick bowler in Mohammad Naveed, Bangladesh’s Shakib al-Hasan is a world-class all-rounder, while Afghanistan’s mere presence is a tremendous story of sportsmen rising above incredible challenges.

Sadly, there is a South African man at the centre of these efforts to push back the Associates – former wicketkeeper/batsman Dave Richardson, although he is probably just taking orders from those who pay his salary as ICC chief executive.

I say this because Richardson has been quoted as saying having Associate teams in the World Cup leads to too many one-sided matches and has also been quoted as praising the unpredictability and charm that these same teams bring to the tournament!

There are, of course, places nine and ten open for qualifiers at the next World Cup, but Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, who vote in favour of the Big Three and receive financial rewards and more exposure for their teams as a result, will be heavily favoured to take those spots as the system is in their favour.

Apart from England’s dreadful performances, the other key features of the first week of the Cricket World Cup have been New Zealand’s invincibility at home, a new benchmark of 300 runs per innings being set by the powerful batting sides and the importance of taking wickets in the middle overs otherwise set batsmen in the death overs will run amok.