While Titans have qualified for the semi-finals of the Momentum one-day cricket series, they finished the league disappointingly and left their fans in the lurch with two poor performances last weekend.

With two unnecessary defeats in their latest two league matches, Titans deprived their fans of the chance to see them at home playing in the semi-final or the finals of this tournament.

Last week, Rekord reported that Titans could still end on top of the log in the Momentum series. On Friday night, the Dolphins done them the favour to beat the Cobras in Cape Town and the door swung wide open to the top spot on the log for Henry Davids and his men. All they had to do was beat the Warriors, who were at the bottom of the log at that stage, on Friday in Centurion and the Dolphins on Sunday in Durban. In the process they had to collect only one bonus point or dramatically improve their net run rate to finish in front of the Cobras on the log.

The home team started brilliantly on Friday in Centurion when their batsmen gathered a solid 353/5 in 50 overs.

Then the disappointing show of the Titans’ bowlers followed. They could not defend this very good score and allowed men like Colin Ingram (106), JJ Smith (86), Darryl Brown (50) and Christiaan Jonker (42 from 19 balls) to bat the Warriors to victory.

The Titans were suddenly under pressure and then had to win the Dolphins in Durban on Sunday to secure a home semi-final. After Davids won the toss in Durban, he chose to field first. Maybe he thought the team’s batsmen had a better chance to win the match and that they would do better in chasing a score rather than to defend it.

With JP de Villiers (4/51 in 9.4 overs) at the helm the Titans’ bowlers this time did better and dismissed all the Dolphins batsmen for 261 runs. In fact, if it were not for Vaughn van Jaarsveld’s 101 runs from 118 balls, the Dolphins’ total would have looked quite poor. This time, the Titans failed with the bat and only Theunis de Bruyn (81), Dean Elgar (59) and David Wiese (50 from 38 balls) could fetch double figures.

Due to the Warriors’ brilliant game against the Lions on Sunday, in which the former earned a bonus point, the Titans made matters so difficult for themselves that they eventually only just managed to qualify for the semi-finals on the basis of their better net run rate. They must, however, now play this game against the Dolphins on Tuesday in Durban again, which means the Titans’ fans in Pretoria will only be able to watch it on TV.

Rob Walter will have to be spot-on with his team selection for Tuesday’s semi-final and the Titans’ batsmen and bowlers will, for once, all have to deliver in the same game if they want to keep their hopes alive to become champions