Ken Borland

When Unlimited Titans coach Rob Walter sat down on the SuperSport Park outfield with his team as the sun disappeared over Wierda Park after the third day of their final Sunfoil Series match against the Warriors, he no doubt stressed the importance of finishing the season well.

His team did that, fighting hard on the final day of the match for the second weekend in a row, beating the Warriors by 87 runs, to finish in a respectable fourth place on the Sunfoil Series log.

A fortnight ago, the Titans were firmly anchored in last place on the log, 13.60 points behind the Highveld Lions. Victories over the Knights and Warriors meant they leapfrogged both their neighbours and the Eastern Cape side, finishing just 5.88 points off the third-placed Dolphins.

Walter will be the first to admit his team erred badly in the opening stages of the four-day competition, especially in terms of their batting. Limited-overs cricket is clearly this Titans team’s strength, and it was perhaps understandable they took a while to get into occupying-the-crease mode.

But by the end of the campaign, a new four-day modus operandi was being implemented and the depth of the squad was also being established with several fringe players getting a run and many of them doing well enough to suggest they will be part of the Titans’ plans next season.

“There were a couple of things to get excited about at the end of the season, we were playing a better brand of four-day cricket and the right strategies were being implemented. We don’t want to make it too complicated, it’s a very simple game plan and it’s just a matter of executing it,” Walter told The Pretoria News yesterday.

“Young guys have also been doing well at the back end of the season, which shows we do have some depth and able replacements in most areas. The Cobras won the competition because their senior players stood up, but their depth also performed. It’s important that we improve our depth.”

Many critics questioned whether the Titans have the bowlers to succeed in four-day cricket, but they took 20 wickets in their last two matches on relatively flat pitches.

David Wiese, with 30 wickets in six matches at an average of 17.56, did a magnificent job for the Titans, while Shaun von Berg and Marchant de Lange did much for the connoisseurs of leg-spin and fast bowling respectively to look forward to next season.

“How David has grown from a skill point of view has been one of the highlights of the season for me,” Walter said. “He has outstanding skill, he’s good with the new ball or, as he showed against the Warriors, with a 65-70 over ball. So he’s able to bowl in different phases of the game and the key is his accuracy and consistency.

“Marchant showed his old self in patches, he makes it very uncomfortable for the batsman and even guys with a hundred were jumping around. That’s obviously exciting and he can be a real impact player for us moving forward, as will Shaun.

“By his own admission, Shaun struggled with his rhythm on the final day against the Warriors, but I’m very happy with the way he bowled this season. The next step in his development  is knowing what to do when batsmen come after him or when the ball’s not coming out great,” Walter said.

The alleged lack of batting depth in the Titans also seems to be overstated when one considers the runs made by Theunis de Bruyn, Graeme van Buuren, Grant Thomson, Cobus Pienaar and Qaasim Adams in recent weeks.

Young opener Ernest Kemm also had his day in the sun with 62 on the third day of the match against the Warriors.

Walter said that the competition for batting places next season would be healthy for the team.

“Theunis looked really good and it’s great that we have a couple of options in terms of opening batsmen. Dean Elgar won’t be around for every game, so we need to make sure that we have back-up. We have able replacements and they’ll also be pushing Heino Kuhn,” the coach said.

Pienaar and Thomson have also produced valuable bowling performances for the Titans and that only adds to their value, while the strong finish to the season made by Adams means the stocks are healthy in the middle-order.

“The four-day victories where you go the distance to win and put in the hard yards are definitely the most satisfying. And the fact we shared the Momentum One-Day Cup with a set of young players mixed in with the experience and had a good end to the Sunfoil Series with the same mix, is very encouraging,” Walter said.

Qaasim Adams and Mangaliso Mosehle scored half-centuries and led the Unlimited Titans to a commanding position on the third day of their Sunfoil Series match against the Knights at SuperSport Park in Centurion on Saturday.

Adams and Mosehle added 105 for the fifth wicket, in just over two hours and off 163 balls, and allowed the Titans to declare their second innings on 286 for seven midway through the final session.

The Titans began the third day by wrapping up the Knights first innings for 218, Marchant de Lange having Werner Coetsee (57) and Corne Dry (1) caught behind the wicket in the space of 17 balls, giving them a first-innings lead of 148.

That meant the Knights were left with a daunting target of 435 for victory and they had reached 32 without loss when bad light stopped play with six overs left to be bowled. Openers Reeza Hendricks (16*) and Gihahn Cloete (15*) had done a good job in surviving for close to an hour.

Adams was the star of the day in scoring 84, starting his innings patiently as he came in with the Titans in danger of a wobble on 72 for three.

But by midway through the afternoon, he was bristling with intent as he collected 10 fours and two sixes in setting up the declaration. He was involved in a tremendous tussle with fiery Knights fast bowler Johan van der Wath, which required the intervention of the umpires at one stage, and it was the veteran who eventually removed him.

The left-handed Adams had started his innings relying on clever deflections for runs, but by the end he was unselfishly freeing his arms and hitting out and the slow pitch which has been the bane of strokeplay throughout the game eventually proved his undoing as he failed to clear deep mid-on with a lofted drive.

The Knights were battered by Adams and were run off their feet by Mosehle, who scored a sprightly 56 off 79 balls.

The wicketkeeper/batsman’s innings was also crucial as the Titans were in danger of wasting their first-innings advantage when he came to the crease on 106 for four, the lead being 254.

Titans openers Heino Kuhn and Ernest Kemm were both dismissed for eight, bowled by Van der Wath and caught in the slips off Corne Dry respectively, but captain Henry Davids (33) and Roelof van der Merwe (29) then set about the bowling in positive fashion.

Both were well set to completely take the game away from the Knights, but both contrived to get themselves out in rather soft fashion.

Van der Merwe skewed an ambitious drive on the up off Dry to mid-on, while Davids skied a shortish ball from Malusi Siboto straight to fine leg.

With the log-leading Cape Cobras needing eight wickets on the final day to beat the Warriors, the Knights, already trailing by 9.08 points, are going to have to produce something special to stay in contention for the title. They will need to score another 403 runs in 96 overs today to beat the Titans and stay in touch with the defending champions.

The hesitant, flatfooted Unlimited Titans batsmen succumbed meekly on the third day as the bizhub Highveld Lions beat them by eight wickets in their Sunfoil Series match at the BidVest Wanderers Stadium on Saturday.

The Lions batsmen kept their cool far better on a tricky Wanderers pitch, posting 212 in their first innings to claim a 65-run lead, and then bowling the Titans out for a meagre 110 in their second innings on Saturday.

That left the southern Gauteng team with a target of just 46 for victory and they knocked those runs off for the loss of two wickets in just 9.5 overs, captain Stephen Cook scoring 29 not out.

The gentle medium-pace of Brett Pelser was once again the undoing of the Titans as the all-rounder claimed three for 16 in 9.2 overs for superb match figures of seven for 44.

Were it not for the fine resistance offered by Farhaan Behardien, who scored 63, the Titans would have been seen off a long time before the eventual finish two minutes before the scheduled lunch break.

The technically poor Titans batsmen were obviously poorly equipped to handle a probing, disciplined Lions attack, in which left-armer Cliffe Deacon claimed three for 30 on Saturday, for six wickets in the match, and Hardus Viljoen took two for 19.

An amazing bowling performance by Andrew Birch led the Warriors to a crushing 10-wicket victory over the Knights on the third day of their four-day domestic franchise series match in Bloemfontein on Saturday.

The Knights batsmen could not fathom the late swing Birch obtained in cloudy conditions, crashing to 106 all out in their second innings, leaving the Warriors with a target of just 94 to win the match.

Birch finished with career-best figures of eight for 30 as he claimed four of the five wickets to fall on Saturday morning after the Knights had resumed on 76 for five.

He struck for the first time in his second over of the day, having Patrick Botha (18) caught behind by Adrian McLaren to break a stubborn sixth-wicket stand of 33 with Dean Elgar.

Elgar, fresh off his maiden Test century last weekend, top-scored for the Knights with 34 before he was also caught behind off Birch four overs later.

Birch then wrapped up the Knights tail for the addition of just 20 more runs as the home side completed a dismal second-innings effort that lasted just 32.1 overs.

Quickfire innings of 48 not out by Michael Price and 44 not out by Davey Jacobs would then see the Warriors go to victory in just 13.3 overs without the loss of a wicket.

The Warriors earned 17.62 bonus points to go to 92 points overall, just 0.18 points behind the log-leading Cape Cobras.