Honours even at Centurion

Ken Borland

The draw was mostly never in doubt after the vast majority of the weekend’s play was washed out in Centurion, but the Warriors did bat impressively in their second innings to prompt a few ideas of a declaration in their Four-Day Domestic Series match against the Titans yesterday.

The Warriors dismissed the Titans for 267 in their first innings in the morning to claim a 40-run lead, despite Theunis de Bruyn’s (above) century, and they rattled along to 166/2 in just 31 overs.

Although their lead was already a useful 206, there were just 42 overs left in the day, and the visitors decided they had nothing to gain by a declaration because they were highly unlikely to bowl the Titans out in 40 overs.

So the two teams shook hands on the draw half-an-hour before the scheduled tea break, with Yaseen Valli not out on 69. Ed Moore had earlier brought an aggressive approach in scoring 73 off 84 balls, completing a great match for the left-handed opener following his century in the first innings.

De Bruyn had played some wonderful strokes in the morning, collecting 17 fours in his 103 off 150 deliveries, but this was not enough to prevent the Titans losing the bonus-point battle 13.3414.14 points as they were bowled out 35 minutes before lunch.

Off-spinner Simon Harmer did the bulk of the damage, finishing with 4/71 in 22 overs, but fast bowler Anrich Nortje ended with figures of 4/67 in 18.3 overs.

This included the wicket of Shaun von Berg, scoring a quickfire 31 before he was last man out, trapped lbw by a fast, swinging yorker that hit him straight on the ankle and kept him off the field for the second innings.