Boucher’s men are wary of getting into a scrap with the Warriors
ALL WEEK, it’s all anyone’s heard from the Titans players and their coach Mark Boucher about the team they’ll face in the Momentum One-Day Cup final at SuperSport Park this afternoon: “they’re real scrappers.”
It’s a description, Warriors skipper Jon-Jon Smuts is clearly proud of. “It’s an Eastern Cape thing,” he said with a smile yesterday. “We’ve always been referred to like that – scrappers – at the Warriors, even when Mark Boucher played there – that’s probably where he got it from. It’s a ‘never say die’ attitude that we adopt.”
That characteristic was on display in their stirring comeback in the play-off match on Monday night against the Knights, who had appeared in control of their chase and then fell well short as the Warriors turned up the pressure in the final 10 overs.
“We’ve always stood up in adversity, when we’ve looked like we were down and out in a competition, we’ve had to win four in a row to qualify for (a) final or play-off, we’ve done that a few times, that’s where the term has come from,” said Smuts. “I think it’s changing in the last few years, especially in white ball cricket we’ve been a lot more consistent, we’re making it to play-off games a lot more regularly, it obviously shows that we’re not just scrapping to win the last four games. But to be able to (perform well more consistently) and still have people wary of us (for our tenacity) is something that we hold close to our hearts.”
By almost all measures the Titans should win tonight. They’ve beaten the Warriors reasonably comfortably in both league matches this season, they have more experience in their team and as Boucher, pointed out yesterday, plenty of firepower in their dressing-room.
“On paper it looks like we are stronger,” said skipper Albie Morkel, “but you don’t play the game on paper.”
For all the talk about their tenacity, the Warriors are a team with some elegant and talented individuals. Colin Ingram is the star of their batting unit, while Smuts has had an outstanding season with both bat and ball.
Both Smuts and Warriors coach Malibongwe Maketa said the team had learned from the T20 final which they lost to the Titans at Centurion back in December, and the added confidence from their comeback in Bloemfontein on Monday has lifted spirits further still.
“The fact that we’ve been here before gives us a lot more calmness, we know what we are going to come across,” said Maketa. While there’ll be plenty of focus on AB de Villiers and Colin Ingram in today’s OneDay Cup final, two players who epitomise the respective sides will be in the spotlight too. WE take a look at them. Just about the only thing that’s flashy about Andrew Birch is his hair. No-one typifies the Warriors’ enjoyment of a scrap better than the 31-year-old. He bustles toward the crease in the manner of an old-fashioned England seamer, swings the ball nicely and will throw in a bouncer occasionally. But it’s the heart of the man than stands out – like Monty Python’s “black knight” he never knows when he’s down.
It’s an often under-appreciated element in a player from those watching from the outside. Inside the dressing-room, the Warriors know they can count on Birch when the going is toughest. His double strike to dismiss Dave Miller and Pite van Biljon in the play-off game against the Knights underscored that characteristic. Birch’s stats in this season’s One-Day Cup have been solid but not spectacular, but the numbers only tell a small part of what makes him such an important player. Much maligned by the public, but a true professional and a valued and highly-respected voice in the dressing-room, Behardien has been a key figure in much of the Titans’ success in the last few seasons. As a “finisher” he’s been one of the best on the domestic scene.
A glance at his statistics this season don’t tell the full story of Behardien’s contribution – 162 runs in five innings with one half-century; it’s hard to bat where he does especially when the Titans’ top order has performed so well. In finals, it’s the big players, the leaders who are required to set the tone, and Behardien is one of those.