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.

David Wiese bowled the Unlimited Titans to an 87-run victory over the Warriors and into fourth place on the final log in their Sunfoil Series match at SuperSport Park in Centurion yesterday.

The Warriors, chasing a daunting 395 for victory, were looking likely to achieve the task as David White’s magnificent century took them to 253 for three when Wiese came back into the attack 45 minutes before tea.

By the tea break, Wiese had already accounted for Ryan Bailey (18), Somila Seyibokwe (5) and claimed the key scalp of White, trapped lbw by a yorker he might have just got a scratch on, for a fabulous 142.

The all-rounder, who has been far and away the Titans’ best paceman this season, then all but sealed victory with the wickets of Simon Harmer (1) and Andrew Birch (0) in the first over after tea, to leave the Warriors on 283 for eight.

The match-winning spell of five for 30 in seven overs gave Wiese the best figures of his 59-match first-class career – six for 59 in 16 overs – and he also took 10 wickets in a game for the first time, his overall haul being 10 for 111.

The last two wickets fell to Grant Thomson, the debutant who bowled a crucial pressure-building spell opposite Wiese before tea to go with his impressive contributions of 40 and 53 with the bat, and Shaun von Berg, the leg-spinner who battled on the final day and returned figures of two for 88 in 20.1 overs.

Barring some juvenile confrontations out in the middle while White and Jon-Jon Smuts were batting together, it was another gripping final day at SuperSport Park, much like the thriller last weekend against the Knights, which the Titans also won.

White, who top-scored with 85 in the Warriors’ disappointing first innings of 234, stayed at the crease for 313 balls, hammering 24 fours off 210 balls, and while he was there, the Warriors were very much in the contest and up with the required run-rate.

He had dominated the first three hours of play, driving and hooking in impressive fashion as he added 124 for the second wicket with Colin Ackermann (51), 57 for the third wicket with Smuts (28) and 50 with Bailey for the fourth wicket.

Von Berg bowled 11 overs for 46 runs in the morning, consistent bad balls meaning a release of pressure, but fortunately Wiese produced a brilliant performance in the afternoon, justifying his status as the leader of the attack.

The 28-year-old played just six of the 10 matches but finished the campaign in the top six on the wicket-takers’ list, with 30 at 17.56, finishing second to Kyle Abbott in the averages.

Titans coach Rob Walter has indicated that fixing their four-day form is his chief priority and he will be hugely encouraged by the last two performances, with many of the fringe players excelling to give the Titans three victories in the season, the same as the Dolphins.

All-rounder David Wiese was the star for the Unlimited Titans on the second day of their Sunfoil Series match against the Warriors at SuperSport Park yesterday, his runs and wickets helping the home side to take firm control of the game.

Wiese was an important cog in heeding coach Rob Walter’s plea that the team show more application with the bat, scoring 46 as they posted 353 all out in their first innings, and then did another fine job with the ball for the Titans, claiming three for 26 in 15 overs as the Warriors limped to 165 for eight in reply.

Debutant Somila Seyibokwe (11*) and Basheer Walters (8*) were the batsmen at the crease for the Warriors when bad light stopped play at 4.35pm with 21 overs to be bowled on the second day.

In-form opener David White was the only batsman to shine for the Warriors as he scored a classy 85 off 116 balls on a pitch which is producing more and more uneven bounce.

While the Titans definitely had an advantage by winning the toss and batting first, their bowlers have been impressive, Wiese, Marchant de Lange, Shaun von Berg and Cobus Pienaar offering no leniency as they applied constant pressure.

White and Jon-Jon Smuts (20) offered the most resistance with a third-wicket stand of 60 after Michael Price (6) and Colin Ackermann (4) had fallen cheaply to De Lange and Wiese respectively shortly after lunch.

De Lange gave a glimpse of what the Aussie batsmen were fortunate to miss out on while he was injured, having Price caught at short-leg off a sharp lifter and generally bowling with terrific pace and ferocity, without the reward he deserved.

Ryan Bailey added 42 for the fourth wicket with White, but the veteran once again fell in the teens, falling into a short midwicket trap set by Pienaar and being well-caught by Qaasim Adams for 17.

Despite the odd delivery keeping lethally low, the Warriors batsmen were addicted to the drug of back-foot play and Athenkosi Dyili and Andrew Birch were both bowled for ducks, hanging back in the crease, by Pienaar and leg-spinner Von Berg respectively.

The Titans had begun the second day on 268 for six and Pienaar, who had done much to arrest a middle-order slide on the first day, completed his third half-century of this Sunfoil Series campaign off the third delivery of the day, but was then removed two balls later by Birch, driving to cover.

Wiese claimed eight fours off 71 balls and De Lange (27) also dished out some punishment though to lift the Titans to an impressive total, one that could ensure they are not left languishing at the bottom of the log.

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.