Morkel saves Titans' blushes
A summary of the latest action from the Standard Bank Pro20 Series
Keith Lane
22-Jan-2006
At Willowmoore Park in Benoni, the Titans were stretched to the last
three balls by the Warriors in their effort to pass a small target of 113 to win by four wickets. Having been asked to bat first on a two-paced
pitch the Warriors collapsed to 112, with Justin Kreusch scoring
73. The next highest was 16 from Robin Peterson as first Brendon Reddy
picked up 3 for 31 and then Pierre de Bruyn mixed it up to take 4
for 11. Some poor batting from the Titans top order saw them collapse to
39 for 5 after 10 overs. It was left to Goolam Bodi and Albie Morkel to
sensibly bat the Titans back into a winning position. Their 73-run
partnership was ended with the scores level and Bodi failing to clear
mid-off for 43. It was, however, the 46 off 30 balls from Morkel that
saved the Titans some embarrassment.
Rain in Bloemfontein saw the Lions beat the Eagles by 28 runs according to the Duckworth-Lewis method when rain ended all chances of play after
the Eagles had faced 7.4 overs. The Lions had earlier totalled 174 in
their 20 overs with Neil McKenzie striking a brilliant 85 off 49 balls.
Andy Blignaut, making his debut for the Lions, waded in with 32 off 16
as the Lions set a reasonable target. Rain however spoilt any chance of
excitement with the Eagles scoring 40 for 4 as they tried to reach the
adjusted target. With the rain increasing the umpires had no alternative
but to leave the field of play after only 7.4 overs.
Keith Lane works for Cricinfo in South Africa