Titans reach Ram Slam final with comfortable victory over Warriors
The Titans will play in the final of the Ram Slam T20 Challenge on Saturday, after they beat the Warriors in the semi-final on Wednesday night.
A walk in the park. There is no other way to describe the Titans’ victory over the Warriors in Wednesday night’s Ram Slam T20 Challenge semi-final.
Albie Morkel and his teammates beat the men from the Eastern Cape comprehensively by eight wickets to re-affirm their dominance in the tournament.
After they started the tournament with six victories in their first eight matches (with two wash-outs), their campaign started to wane when they emptied their bench in the final week of the league stage. But on Wednesday night they were coming full circle at SuperSport Park in Centurion.
Tabraiz Shamsi produced his best performance of the tournament so far while half centuries by Aiden Markram and AB de Villiers were enough to end the game in the sixteenth over of the Titans’ innings.
The Titans held the upper hand despite going into the knockout without Dale Steyn or Morné Morkel and lost senior batsman Henry Davids to injury four minutes before toss. Their attack, with Shamsi at the forefront, dismissed the Warriors for a below-par score of 143.
The Warriors hope flared up when Quinton de Kock’s wicket fell in the first over with the Proteas wicket keeper only manage to get one run. But when Heinrich Klaassen’s wicket fell in the fifth over with the Titans’ score at 44, AB de Villiers joined Markram while the spectators could not conceal their excitement. De Villiers did not disappoint and opened his account with a giant six. Ten overs and several boundaries later De Villiers and Markram both their reached half centuries and Markram could record the winning runs.
The Warriors were not able to give Coach Malibongwe Maketa, who will now join the national team as Ottis Gibson’s assistant, a festive farewell. They also could not repeat their heroics of last season, when they reached the final. They were on the back foot early, at 17 for 2 after two overs, but then rallied through Colin Ingram and Colin Ackermann, before Shamsi dismantled them, and De Villiers and Markram finished off the chase.
The only thing Shamsi needs to check is how far he is ahead of the chasing pack in the wicket-takers’ list. He has 16 scalps at 13.68, four more than his nearest challenger, Dane Paterson.
Warriors did not last their full 20 overs and were dismissed with 11 balls remaining in their innings.
The final, on December 16, will be played between Titans and the winner of the Dolphins versus Cape Cobras semi-final, to be held on Thursday.
For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites:
For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram.
