Titans humiliated in first four-day game

The Unlimited Titans are the defending champions in the domestic four-day Sunfoil cricket series. This contributed to their embarrassment when they started the tournament by losing with 205 runs to the Highveld Lions in their first game last week in Centurion. Henry Davids, who was released by the Proteas to be able to play in this game, won the toss and elected to field first. The Lions’ batsmen did not make anybody wait and from the very first over, the runs started flowing. Technically, the Titans’ bowlers did not bowl badly, but their inability to take wickets regularly later become problematic. Meanwhile, men like Stephen Cook (113), Themba Bavuma (88) and Thami Tsholikile (63 not out) kept the scoreboard ticking and eventually the Jo’burgers got 419 in their first innings before they were bowled out. During the Titans’ first innings, their former teammate, Hardus Viljoen, showed the bowlers how it’s done when he took five wickets, including those of top batsmen like Francois le Clos, Henry Davids, Farhaan Behardien and Mangaliso Mosehle. The men from Centurion were eventually all out for 319 runs and they could never really recover from this setback. The Titans’ bowlers, with Rowan Richards (four wickets) at the forefront, tried their best to fight back. They succeeded to bowl out the Lions fairly cheaply (219) in their second innings. This left Davids and his men with the task of getting 320 in their second innings to win the game. Unfortunately, disaster struck for the Titans late on the third day. Not one of their top five batsmen were able to get more than five runs. This time, Chris Morris (three wickets) helped Viljoen (three wickets) to destroy the Titans’ top order batsmen and suddenly it became a case of survival rather than victory on the last day for the Titans. Although a few tail-enders tried their best, it was eventually too much for them and the Titans were bowled out for a humiliating 114 runs in the second innings. The Unlimited Titans’ next game in the series is on Thursday in Benoni, when they will play against the Cape Cobras.