Ken Borland

The Unlimited Titans beat the Knights by seven wickets in their Sunfoil Series match in Kimberley over the weekend to climb off the bottom of the log, but the most significant aspect of their triumph is that it sees them abandon a 15-game winless streak in four-day cricket.

Coach Rob Walter was obviously a delighted man on Monday, the pleasure of seeing all his plans finally come together in the Sunfoil Series just adding to the joy of getting engaged recently to the girl of his dreams and the satisfaction of seeing Albie Morkel and Farhaan Behardien back in the national squad.

“It was the type of performance that I knew we could produce. For the first time the bowlers really worked as a unit, stuck to the plan and were able to hold their skills for a long time.

“I was very chuffed, it was a significant performance and the most important part of it was the way we played in different, crucial phases of the game,” Walter told The Pretoria News yesterday.

While it was a solid team effort that earned them victory over the previous log-leaders, CJ de Villiers, Shaun von Berg, David Wiese and debutant Vincent Moore were the stars for the Titans.

CJ de Villiers - batting hero

De Villiers, chosen in the team for his bowling, scored crucial half-centuries in each innings. The seamer top-scored with 57 in the first innings, combining with Moore (48) in a 106-run partnership for the last wicket that lifted the Titans to parity with the Knights.

The 27-year-old then came in as a nightwatchman and made 52 not out to take the Titans to a tricky little target of 156 on the final day.

“For CJ to make a fifty in the first innings at number 10 and then back it up was awesome. That partnership with Vincent got us back in the game and I was especially pleased with his application because it’s easy to bat like a number 10 in those situations,” Walter said.

In terms of the bowling, the match brought outstanding figures of 10 for 129, including a career-best seven for 66 in the second innings, for leg-spinner Von Berg, a five-wicket haul in the first innings for Wiese and a highly-encouraging match analysis of four for 87 for Moore, the 19-year-old left-arm quick.

“David bowled superbly well in the first innings and Vincent bowled really nicely too. He got the key wicket of Rilee Rossouw in the first innings at a key time and consistently executed his skills,” Walter said.

But it was Von Berg who the coach was most excited about, the 27-year-old producing a potentially career-defining performance on a pitch that did begin to turn towards the end of the game.

“It was as well as I’ve seen Shaun bowl, a top-class effort. I’m very hesitant to tag players and expect too much, too early from them, but if he can consistently do what he did over the weekend, then he’ll be a candidate for higher honours.

“He never struggles to turn the ball, but he nailed his pace and where to land the ball and he bowled around the wicket exceptionally well,” Walter said.

Unlimited Titans coach Rob Walter yesterday conceded that the right two teams will be competing in the RamSlam T20 Challenge final because his side only showed glimpses of their true ability through the competition.

The Titans were beaten by the David Miller-inspired Dolphins in Thursday night’s qualifying playoff for the final, leaving the KwaZulu-Natal side to take on the Cape Cobras in the final at Newlands on Sunday.

“To sum up our campaign, I would say we showed glimpses of what we can do, but never really put it all together. It was an inconsistent campaign and making the playoff for finishing third was a small reward for the times we did play well,” Walter told The Pretoria News.

“Our skills can be better in everything and you’d hope a team always has that mindset. We were short in all departments and you can’t do things well one day and not the next if you’re going to win competitions. We need to improve our skills and execute them more consistently.”

The Dolphins were sent in to bat and posted a daunting 200 for four in their 20 overs. Their innings was dominated by Miller, who hammered an outrageous 93 not out off just 37 balls.

The Titans had fought back well after a rapid start by Cameron Delport and Morne van Wyk had taken the Dolphins to 50 midway through the seventh over. Their night would have been very different had Miller been given out lbw on five when Albie Morkel, the ball after dismissing Daryn Smit, angled a delivery into the left-hander from around the wicket and struck him on his pads. The ball would clearly have hit the stumps, but umpire Ian Howell ruled not out, presumably believing the ball had struck the batsman just outside off stump.

“The Miller lbw shout was out, but those aren’t given sometimes. It was a big decision in a big game and at 80-5 in the 13^th over, it would have been a different match. But the Dolphins and Cobras playing in the final is a fair reflection of the competition as a whole.

“I think they should use DRS in all televised matches, with one referral. Against the top-quality players you generally only get one chance. But it was an extraordinary innings and at some point you just have to give credit to the batsman. I haven’t seen striking like that for a long time, he didn’t mistime a single ball and it was a serious effort,” Walter said.

Although the Titans bowlers were taken to the cleaners by Miller – most notably Ethy Mbhalati (two overs for 35) and Roelof van der Merwe in an 18^th over that cost 34 runs – Walter said their performances had not been poor.

“I don’t think we bowled badly, it’s just that Miller hit every length and all our slower balls. It’s easy to criticise in retrospect, but sometimes the bowlers just have to go with how they feel on the day.

“And I was proud of the way we batted, it was a bloody good chase. On any other day, Heino Kuhn’s 76 off 39 would have been the stand-out innings and then Mangaliso Mosehle produced a flippen’ awesome cameo at the end [31 off 14].”

But T20 is a school of hard knocks and Walter was left to reflect that “it was a game of very small margins”.

“Losing Albie Morkel and David Wiese back-to-back took the wind out of our sails. Before that the required run-rate was less than 13 and it was game on.”

For Walter, the performances of senior players like Kuhn, Van der Merwe, Farhaan Behardien and the Morkel brothers were positives from the campaign as a whole, and youngsters like Graeme van Buuren and Theunis de Bruyn also produced match-winning showings that they could be proud of.

Jacques Faul is the new chief executive of Titans cricket, taking over from acting appointee Aniel Soma, who covered so efficiently in the wake of Elise Lombard’s tragic passing.

It may be considered a step down in some quarters for Faul, who was the acting CEO of Cricket South Africa for a year, but it is a return to franchise cricket that the former Western Transvaal player is excited about.

“I learnt a lot while I was with CSA, it was difficult, but we achieved what we set out to do, which was keeping the operations going and getting the sponsors back. It has also given me a more balanced view of cricket administration, having always been on the affiliate’s side of the fence before then. I wanted to stay in cricket and I want to make the Titans the best franchise in the world. It’s a fantastic organisation and I’m very privileged,” Faul said.

It has not been the best of timing for Faul with the Titans’ awful season a blow to their reputation as one of the country’s leading franchises. But the former North-West CEO has no doubts he can help get the amalgamation of the Northerns and Easterns cricket unions back up to the top.

“I want to take the organisation to a new level, but you can only react in four ways strategically when you move into a venture, and this applies from a pub to an accounting firm. You can stop, start, continue or change things.

“The Titans is a great organisation, so I’ll be continuing a lot of things. But my role demands that I stop, start and change certain things. Issues such as stadia and financial stability are always dynamic,” Faul said.

Faul played a major role in elevating the status of cricket in Potchefstroom when he became CEO in 2003, but he was actually brought up in Klerksdorp, where he played club cricket for 21 years and was elected president of the club when he was just 26.

Had he not been called into administration at such a young age, and shown such commercial vision, Faul might well have ended up coaching.

He has a Level III certificate and an academy at Klerksdorp High School and describes coaching as “what I enjoy most”.

It’s been the proverbial season horribilis for the Nashua Titans with the Ram Slam T20 Challenge providing the last chance for the dominant franchise of 2011/12 to get something out of the summer.

The four-day Sunfoil Series was particularly galling for the Titans, who went into the competition as the defending champions, but lost eight of their 10 matches and failed to win any. To make it even more traumatic, their defeats were by huge margins – one by an innings and 247 runs, three by 10 wickets, one by nine wickets and others by 161 runs and 393 runs. Six of their matches were all over in three days.

The root of their travails would appear to be that the reserve talent in the squad responded poorly to the challenge of stepping up and replacing the likes of Faf du Plessis, Jacques Rudolph, Albie Morkel, Farhaan Behardien, Marchant de Lange, Paul Harris and Morne Morkel, who for various reasons only played 15 Sunfoil Series matches between them.

“The four-day campaign was dreadful and there were a combination of reasons. But it’s fair to say that the youth didn’t come through, they just didn’t execute their skills, either batting or bowling.

“Sometimes youngsters come in and take to it straight away, for others it takes them a while. We were playing three or four youngsters at once, whereas in an ideal world you’d like to knit one or two at a time into the team. We’ve got to work really hard,” coach Matthew Maynard admitted.

The Titans were, of course, rocked by twin tragedies at the start of the summer, with Maynard losing his son, Tom, a Surrey cricketer who was considered one of the most promising in England, and long-time and much-loved CEO Elise Lombard then passing away in August.

But their followers were heartened by their start to the season, making the semi-finals of the Champions League and then reaching the Momentum One-Day Cup playoff.

It is fair to say that the franchise are baffled by how the season just totally unravelled from that point.

Jacques Faul is the new CEO of the Titans and he admits that a franchise will always be judged by the performance of the team.

“The team is the showcase of the franchise and the play on the field is what we sell, if you like. I’ve been impressed with Matt Maynard as a coach, but even he doesn’t seem to really know where it all went wrong. He has worked out what we need though, going forward, and this has been such a successful franchise so I don’t think it will be difficult to return to winning ways,” Faul said.

A late resurgence in the T20 Challenge could, of course, turn around the whole season, especially in terms of the financial rewards it provides a franchise.

And the increased financial resources means Maynard could be in the market for some new players, while yesterday’s men slip from the scene.

“We still need to strengthen the squad and we’ll look to do that,” Maynard said.

Faul, drawing from his experience of helping to build the high-flying bizhub Highveld Lions team, is frustrated that the Titans allowed players like Hardus Viljoen, Imran Tahir and Gulam Bodi to slip away.

“You need to hang on to your talent, we were losing matches to teams with guys who used to play for the Titans, and you need a good mix of old and young players. It took the Highveld Lions a while to build their team. We know our national players are not going to play, it would be naïve to rely on them. We have to win without them and we have to create more stars to win,” Faul said.

The Titans management would seem to want a top-order batsman, a paceman and perhaps an experienced spinner, Harris having retired, who specialises in four-day cricket.

Of course, the Titans will look a different team when the likes of Rudolph, Albie Morkel, Behardien and De Lange play regularly.

“What the senior players bring to the table is match-winning performances. But the positive from the season is that guys like Graeme van Buuren, Francois le Clus and JP de Villiers look to have the potential to succeed at that level. The talent is there,” Maynard said.

The pressure will now be on the team and coaching staff to ensure that talent makes the Titans way more competitive next season.