Dolphins cruise into One Day Cup final with win over Titans

The Dolphins produced a solid all-round performance to clinch a 65-run win over the Titans in their CSA One Day Cup qualifier at Kingsmead in Durban on Wednesday night.

The win sees the coastal side progress to the final where they will take on Boland in Paarl, who automatically qualified for the trophy match by finishing top of the log after the pool stage.

It wasn’t the most exciting playoff, but the Dolphins bowlers and fielders did a good job, after their batters struggled, before reaching a below par 228/8 after their 50-overs batting first.

The Titans would likely have been satisfied with that effort, and with their powerful batting lineup would have backed themselves to chase down the total, but in the end came up well short as they produced an even worse effort than the hosts, finishing all out for 163.

Titans bowl first

It was the Titans that won the toss at the start of play and chose to bowl, which seemed to be the correct call as they took regular wickets during the first half of the innings.

They struck in the fourth over, Roelof van der Merwe having Tshepang Dithole (8) caught by Keegan Petersen with the score 18/1.

Andile Phehlukwayo then had Bryce Parsons (15) edging to keeper Lhuan-dre Pretorius and Schalk Engelbrecht picked up the prized scalp of Jon Jon Smuts (22), bowling him three balls later, as the Dolphins slipped to 47/3 in the 15^th over.

The hosts struggles continued as Khaya Zondo (20) and Jason Smith (14) got starts, before falling to Neil Brand and Phehlukwayo respectively, leaving them in big trouble on 91/5 in the 27^th over.

Hanu Viljoen, 57 off 65 balls (4×4; 1×6) and Eathan Bosch (40) finally steadied the ship with the innings biggest partnership of 86 for the sixth wicket, to get them over 150 and towards the 200 run mark.

However a flurry of wickets then saw the back of Viljoen, Bosch and Andile Simelane (3), with Phehlukwayo and Van Der Merwe picking up the wickets, which saw the Dolphins stumble to 185/8.

But Keshav Maharaj, 25no off 16 (1×4; 1×6), and Prenelan Subrayen, 17no off 14 (2×6), finished the innings strongly with an unbroken 43-run stand to give their bowlers something to defend.

Phehlukwayo was the pick of the Titans bowlers with 4/28 from his 10 overs, while Van Der Merwe backed him up well with 2/33 from nine.

Regular wickets

The Titans were then never in the chase as they lost regular wickets throughout their innings, which didn’t allow them to build any meaningful partnerships to threaten the total.

The entire top five were all back in the changeroom with just 65 on the board, and the fact that the biggest partnership was 38 for the sixth wicket between Dewald Brevis and Phehlukwayo, tells the story of the chase.

Brevis to his credit tried to counter attack the Titans back into the match, cracking 36 off 25 balls (1×4; 4×6), but when Maharaj had him caught by Smith, the game was up with them on 103/6.

Dayyaan Galiem struck the second highest score of the innings, hitting 32, but by then it was just a matter of how big the winning margin would be for the Dolphins.

Maharaj, 3/37, and Tristan Luus, 3/48, were the key wicket takers for the Dolphins, and they now set their sights on the One Day Cup final on Sunday.