Johannesburg — While all the attention was on teenager Dewald Brevis, it was one of the Titans’s veterans, Heinrich Klaasen, who made the match-winning contribution with the bat in the CSA T20 Challenge on Saturday.
Klaasen’s unbeaten 51 held the Titans innings together, ensured that wickets didn’t fall in clusters - something that befell their opponents - and dragged the ‘Sky Blues’ to a defendable total.
All the focus in the afternoon match was on 18 year old Brevis, fresh off his record breaking exploits for the South African under-19 side at the World Cup, who made his senior professional debut opening the innings alongside Quinton de Kock.
It was an understandably nervous performance from the prodigy, who made a scratchy 23 off 25 balls, and tried too many big shots. The TItans were in early trouble at 12/2, with both Quinton de Kock and Theunis de Bruyn dismissed inside the Power Play. Brevis was caught at deep midwicket shortly after, although some of his pain would have been assuaged by the R6-million payday that came his way courtesy of the IPL franchise, the Mumbai Indians. It left Klaasen to hold the innings together.
The 30 year old, who’s played 28 T20 Internationals, but has struggled with his form for a while, kept the scoreboard ticking sufficiently with singles, while any time the Knights’ bowlers erred, he pounced, striking four fours and two sixes. He shared a valuable 49-run partnership for the seventh wicket with Junior Dala (27* off18) to ensure the Titans had a defendable total, evn though it looked a bit thin, especially when compared with how the Warriors and Dolphins had played that same pitch earlier in the day.
But improved enough as the Knights, who’ve struggled with the bat through the first three matches of the competition, lost wickets in clusters. The first batch came inside the power play as they lost three wickets in 11 balls for the addition of just five runs, that included a comical run out of Patrick Kruger, which saw he and teammates Raynard van Tonder at same end of the pitch.
Farhaan Behardien (31 off 27) was attempting to match Klaasen’s efforts, but was sensationally caught by Williams off his own bowling - with the seamer, sticking out his right hand, and plucking a firm drive from Behardien out of the air for the one of the catches of the season.
Migael Pretorius struck some lusty blows, but the Knights suffered another dreadful collapse at the end losing their last five wickets for just four runs.
Aaron Phangiso starred for the Titans with ball picking up 2/20, with Williams matching those figures, while Tabraiz Shamsi finished with 2/29.
SCORECARD
Multiply Titans 151/6 (Heinrich Klaasen 59*, Junior Dala 27*, Patrick Kruger 2/18, Nealan van Heerden 2/32)
VKB Knights 124 all out (Farhaan Behardien 31, Migael Pretorius 27, Lizaad Williams 2/20, Aaron Phangiso 2/20)
Titans won by 27 runs
IOL Sport