Phehlukwayo grabs four wickets to restrict Dolphins to 228

Andile Phehlukwayo grabbed a season-best 4-29 to help restrict the Hollywoodbets Dolphins to 228 for eight in their CSA One-Day Cup qualifier at Kingsmead in Durban on Wednesday.

The old cliché is that you can’t make judgments about the conditions until both sides have batted but the Kingsmead pitch certainly seemed slow and thoroughly unfriendly to free-scoring for most of the Dolphins’ innings.

The home team, put in to bat by the Titans, crawled along at just over three to the over until the 37th over when Hanu Viljoen and Eathan Bosch increased the intensity.

Viljoen lofted a straight drive for four off offspinner Schalk Engelbrecht while Bosch went one better, driving him into the stands.

The last 14 overs realised 108 runs, lifting the run-rate to 4.6 runs per over, offering the Titans something of a challenge if they are go forward to face the Goldrush Boland in Sunday’s final in Paarl.

The partnership that built the foundations of the Dolphins’ innings came from Viljoen and Bosch.

Coming together on 91 for five in the 27th over, the pair initially played conservatively, knowing that any further loss of wickets could be fatal.

The first six of the innings, in fact, came from Bosch in that 37th over.

Four more were to follow it, including a splendid climax for the Dolphins when Prenelan Subrayen belted two straight drives into the Friendship Pavilion off the final two deliveries from Dayyaan Galiem who was the only Titans’ bowler to really suffer, conceding 57 runs in his six overs.

But if the last quarter of the Dolphins’ innings was encouraging for the home fans, it was the Titans who held sway most of the time.

The Dolphins’ top-order were unable to judge the slow pace of the pitch and Tshepang Dithole, Jon-Jon Smuts, Bryce Parsons and Jason Smith all played too early at deliveries and, in the main, offered soft catches in the cover and midwicket ring.

The conditions were perfect for Phehlukwayo who took pace off the ball and bowled a variety of deliveries that bamboozled the batters. He was offered good support from spinners Roelof van der Merwe (2-33 off nine overs), Schalk Engelbrecht (1-38 off nine) and skipper Neil Brand (1-38 off 10) who shackled the batters on the slow surface – the same pitch that was used in the Dolphins’ last home match.

How the Titans’ batters will respond to these dry conditions against the likes of Keshav Maharaj, Subrayen and Smuts will go a long way towards determining the result of this match.