The Cape Cobras struck fast with an all-round effort to beat the Titans by four wickets in the Momentum One-Day Cup at Centurion.
It was a complete performance, with the bowlers dovetailing well to restrict the Titans to 212 after they won the toss and elected to bowl first.
Then the batsmen, led by a quickfire 23 off 16 balls (5×4) from Richard Levi. A more measured 54 off 58 from Aviwe Mgijima and 41 off 53 from JP Duminy secured victory with 70 balls to spare.
The bonus point lifted the Cobras to the top of the table with 10 points from three matches.
The Cobras could be pleased at the way their sustained pressure reduced the mighty Titans, who had dominated the Ram Slam T20 series and had two comprehensive wins in the One-Day Cup, to mere mortals.
It wasn’t looking so good when the Titans were 122-2 after 28 overs, but the main factor in the Cobras’ favour was that the hosts needed to up the run-rate from the 4.3 they had achieved at that point.
It did not help, though, that Heino Kuhn retired hurt in the seventh over after scoring 15. He returned later to add 17 more, but by then the damage had been done.
Heinrich Klassen fell to the spin of George Linde for 32, and thereafter wickets fell regularly, with eight of them going down for the addition of 90 runs. Farhaan Behardien was the mainstay of the innings, but even his 59 took 75 balls, and contained just four fours.
Dane Paterson ended with 3-38, while there ware two apiece for Linde, Wayne Parnell and Mthiwekhaya Nabe, and he was the most expensive at just 5.2 an over.
The Titans run-rate of 4.2 was never going to be enough.
Photo: Muzi Ntombela/BackpagePix
