Ken Borland

It’s going to be a bumpy road to the Momentum One-Day Cup playoff for the Dolphins, Lions and Titans, who are all in action on Friday night as the competition enters a critical stage with World Cup and SA A call-ups playing havoc with team selection for the franchises.

The Nashua Cape Cobras must rate themselves as being virtually assured of automatic entry to the final as they enjoy a nine-point lead at the top of the log with three matches to play.

Last season’s joint champions have won five of their seven matches, including an excellent five-wicket win over the bizhub Highveld Lions last week at the Wanderers, when they were missing a large proportion of their first-choice side.

But the fortunes of the three teams below them in the standings – the Dolphins (16pts), Lions (15pts) and Titans (13pts) – have fluctuated wildly and one of the franchises needs to get a solid run going in order to cement themselves into second place.

Lions coach Geoff Toyana will be hoping that it will be his team, that has been boosted by the return of several key players, that will take control of their destiny with victory over the Chevrolet Knights at the Wanderers on Friday, while Titans coach Rob Walter will be aiming for similar success as they take on the Cobras in Cape Town in a match-up that is a repeat of last season’s washed out final.

The fact that SA A play their next limited-overs match against the England Lions in Potchefstroom on Saturday means that Toyana is able to use star bowlers like Eddie Leie and Kagiso Rabada, while Hardus Viljoen is also fit again to further boost their attack and experienced campaigners Alviro Petersen and Thami Tsolekile also come back into the line-up.

Toyana said on Thursday that his team’s chances of possibly moving into second place will all come down to their ability to focus on their own skills and getting the execution of those right.

The Knights come to Johannesburg with their hopes of making the playoff all but gone after just one win in seven games, and they will be without key batsman Reeza Hendricks.

Toyana is not going to write them off, however.

“The Knights are a very dangerous team and very competitive in 50-over cricket. They can still get to 20 points so it’s a crunch game for us. If we don’t win then we’re not going to go far in this competition, so it’s important we do well and keep our destiny in our own hands,” Toyana toldThe Citizen on Thursday.

The Unlimited Titans travel to Newlands fresh from a morale-boosting win over the Knights in Kimberley, but are going to have to find replacements for key players like Marchant de Lange, Theunis de Bruyn and David Wiese, who are all with the SA A side.

Albie Morkel is set to make a return to domestic action and the Titans are going to have to decide, depending on pitch conditions, whether to play a second frontline spinner in Tabraiz Shamsi or another seamer in Ethy Mbhalati, while Graeme van Buuren (slow left-arm) and Grant Thomson (medium-pace) are both batting all-rounders competing for a single place.

The Titans will be hoping for more of the same from openers Jacques Rudolph and Henry Davids, who put on 77 for the first wicket in 14.3 overs against the Knights.

The Cobras have more players unavailable than most, but they have been able to make do thanks to the excellent depth they enjoy down in the Western Cape.

Openers Richard Levi and Andrew Puttick have been making bucket-loads of runs, while this season has also seen Sybrand Engelbrecht make strong progress.

Justin Kemp, the old warhorse, can still cart the best of bowlers around the park, while Robin Peterson is another experienced, dangerous campaigner for the Titans to be wary of.

The Sunfoil Dolphins travel to Port Elizabeth to face a Chevrolet Warriors side that has been boosted by the return of Rusty Theron from a knee injury and the availability of Simon Harmer.

Both sides have been in danger of having their 50-over skills decomposing due to lack of use as neither of them have played in the Momentum One-Day Cup since the end of October, but while the Dolphins still have the title to aim for, the Warriors can realistically only build for next season having won just one of their five games thus far.

Against the strengthened Warriors attack, the Dolphins will be relying heavily on three hugely experienced batsmen – Morne van Wyk, Daryn Smit, who had his 31st birthday on Wednesday, and Vaughn van Jaarsveld, who turns 30 on Monday.

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The Nashua Cape Cobras did not travel well as they suffered their first defeat in the Momentum One-Day Cup last night at SuperSport Park, losing by six wickets with 11.3 overs to spare to the Unlimited Titans.

The bonus point win enabled the Titans to migrate off the bottom of the log, moving above the Warriors.

The Cobras started strongly as openers Richard Levi (33) and Andrew Puttick (55) added 71 off 85 balls, but the advantage shifted to the Titans when David Wiese joined the attack and Rowan Richards bowled Levi before leaving the field injured.

From being generally messy, the Titans bowlers suddenly found their bearings and the Cobras crashed from a healthy 129 for two at the halfway stage to 208 all out in the 42^nd over.

Ethy Mbhalati claimed three wickets, but the best of the Titans bowlers were left-arm spinner Roelof van der Merwe (7-1-17-1), Marchant de Lange (9-1-34-2) and Wiese (6-0-26-1).

Henry Davids (33) and Heino Kuhn (18) made a watchful but solid start to the Titans’ chase and Theunis de Bruyn then played with great fluency and class as he stroked 60 off 68 balls.

Robin Peterson (10-1-37-2) showed that he still has all his skills as he claimed two wickets to reduce the Titans to 140 for four in the 29^th over, but Farhaan Behardien (41*) and Mangaliso Mosehle (31*) ensured there would be no funk over Centurion as they sealed victory with a dashing unbeaten stand of 69 off 60 balls.

Unlimited Titans coach Rob Walter yesterday accurately described his team’s precarious position ahead of their Momentum One-Day Cup match against the Nashua Mobile Cape Cobras at SuperSport Park today as being “backs against the wall” but “not yet dead and buried”.

The Titans are propping up the bottom of the log after losing their opening two matches against the Dolphins and Highveld Lions, and then suffering the embarrassment of getting zero points from their game against the Knights in Benoni because of a sub-standard, dangerous pitch. It means they are yet to get on the scoreboard as far as the log goes, and are already 10 points behind the second and third-placed Dolphins and Highveld Lions.

The Cobras are the runaway leaders of the competition at present, having won all four of their matches.

“We’re obviously in a much worse position because of what happened at Willowmoore Park and our backs are against the wall. We probably require six wins in our last seven games to make the semi-final, but that’s not unfamiliar territory for us. We’ll do whatever we can to fight our way back into it, much like we did last season,” Walter told The Citizen yesterday.

“The players certainly don’t believe they’re dead and buried, you can see their hunger and we know that if we play to the best of our ability, then we can beat anyone.”

It would nevertheless be silly not to consider the Titans as underdogs, even on their home turf, against a Cobras side that is rapidly establishing itself as the most dominant franchise across the board in South African cricket.

Walter said the Titans see the Cobras as the team to beat.

“They’re obviously the form side, a high-quality team, and they’re nine points ahead of everyone else for a reason. To get three bonus-point wins out of four games shows they’re playing seriously good cricket,” he said.

But if the Titans can find that elusive performance where both the batting and bowling click in the same game (and the fielding has to improve as well), then it will be possible for them to beat the Cobras.

The key factor for the home side will be whether they can contain the powerhourse Cobras batting line-up: opener Andrew Puttick is the leading run-scorer in the competition with 339 at an average of 113, with a century and three fifties in his four innings; Stiaan van Zyl and Justin Ontong are both averaging over 50 and Sybrand Engelbrecht and Dane Vilas showed their form in the lower middle-order with their stand of 137 off 14 overs in the previous match against the Knights.

The best way to contain will be to take regular wickets, especially up front, and that makes strike bowler Marchant de Lange the key man.

“In this format, early wickets are crucial because if there’s a set batsman in at the end, then they tend to run away with things. And the Cobras bat all the way down, guys like Robin Peterson and Rory Kleinveldt have only faced 13 balls between them in their four matches, so they bat deep.

“But if we can put it all together, batting and bowling in the same game, and if we can learn to win games if you haven’t necessarily bossed from the start, then we can deliver,” Walter said.

Only 90 minutes of action for a decent-sized crowd was possible at Willowmoore Park in Benoni on Sunday as the Momentum One-Day Cup match between the Unlimited Titans and the Chevrolet Knights was abandoned due to a dangerous pitch.

The Titans had lost the toss and been sent in to bat and they had struggled to 45 for three in 19 overs when umpires Dennis Smith and Gerrie Pienaar, in consultation with match referee Barry Lambson, called the game off.

“The match has been called off in consultation with me because the umpires feel the pitch is too dangerous. They have to consider the safety of the players and several batsmen were hit on the hand, quite a few deliveries jumped off the pitch and at times balls kept low as well. It was getting more uneven,” Lambson said.

The Titans batsmen to be dismissed were Heino Kuhn (5), Henry Davids (25) and Theunis de Bruyn (8), and they all had to contend with deliveries rearing up off a good length, taking blows to the hands practically every over.

Lambson will now submit a report, including photographs and a pitch sample, to Cricket South Africa, who will decide what further action to take.

The Titans, who lost their first two matches in the One-Day Cup, will be hoping points are not deducted from them as the host franchise.

“It’s not as if we requested the pitch and we’re as badly impacted as the opposition, so if points are deducted I don’t think that will be fair. We had nothing to do with it,” Titans coach Rob Walter said.

“It’s sad for cricket and the brand because it’s hard enough to get people into the grounds. It’s the last thing they need and it’s very sad. I can understand if they don’t want to come back next time.”

The strange thing about the pitch debacle is that the strip for Sunday’s game was the one next to the track used for the four-day game against the Warriors, on which batsmen had their fill, Roelof van der Merwe scoring an unbeaten double century.

“I’m not sure what to think because the four-day wicket was a ripper and in just 10 days this has happened, which I don’t quite understand because I know groundsman Brendon Frost works bloody hard,” Walter said.

De Bruyn’s dismissal in the 17^th over, gloving a catch behind to wicketkeeper Rudi Second off Dillon du Preez was indicative of the problems with the pitch. The previous delivery had only bounced ankle high and the wicket-taking ball, pitching in the same spot, reared up viciously and almost hit the batsman in the head.

The prospect of Marchant de Lange bowling at more than 140km/h on the pitch was the deciding factor for the umpires.

“Marchant is a lot quicker than the bowlers used by the Knights and nobody would like to face him on this pitch,” Lambson said.