Gauteng captain Ken Rutherford won the man of the match award but lost the match as Northerns proved their worth as Standard Bank League champions, winning their first limited overs match of the season by two wickets.
Chasing a revised target of 205 off 40 overs, Northerns captain Mark Davis hit the winning runs with the second last ball of the innings, to finish on 208/8.
Earlier, with his team reeling at 17/4, it took a steady hand to bring the Gauteng innings back on track, and that is just what Rutherford provided with an unbeaten 130 which saw his team to a competitive 225/5 off their 45 overs.
Northerns got off to a reasonable start but found themselves in a spot of bother on 99/5 before a heavy storm took the players off the field for 80 minutes.
Five overs were deducted from their innings, and Northerns opening bowlers Steve Elworthy (48) and Rudi Bryson (23) accepted the challenge to ensure that their first match in the league ended in victory.
Their 72-run partnership for the sixth wicket ensured Northerns stayed in the hunt while setting the scene for a tight finish.
Both departed in quick succession with the score on 171, but in the end they did enough to shut out Gauteng.
Rutherford found two willing allies in allrounder Dean Laing (40), and wicketkeeper Nic Pothas (38 not out) who stayed with him to the end.
Laing and his skipper accumulated 86 runs for the fifth wicket in 72 minutes, helping himself to two fours and a six.
Northerns captain Mark Davis combined with Martin van Jaarsveld to send Laing packing, but Pothas stuck around for an unbroken sixth-wicket partnership of 124.
Rutherford was in magnificent form, hitting 14 fours off 127 deliveries, with Pothas proving to be the perfect foil for his captain.
"The result is disappointing when we're trying to win every match we play," said Rutherford, who pulled a groin muscle towards the end of his innings, after the match.
"We made a lot of mistakes, losing wickets too quickly early in the innings. It's going to be a long season so we've got to try to keep to the game plan," he said.
Source: Independent Newspapers
All Material © copyright Independent Newspapers 1997.
A mid-afternoon thunderstorm along with swashbuckling batting contrived to help Northerns squeeze a remarkable victory out of their opening limited overs clash this season. But it required the smash and grab tactics employed by all-rounder Steve Elworthy (48 off 29 balls) to rescue Northerns Titans from possible defeat against Gauteng in defence of their Standard Bank League crown last night.
The sixth-wicket pairing of Elworthy and Rudi Bryson added 72 off just 52 balls, with five sixes and four fours to give the lads in blue the chance they needed to edge home with one ball of their rain-shortened innings remaining.
After a superb century from Ken Rutherford, Gauteng's New Zealand captain, the visitors were well in control as their hosts stumbled to 99 for five in the 25th over before the threatening storm broke, slicing off five overs and resetting the target at 205 off 40 overs.
When Elworthy and Bryson resumed, the target of 106 runs off 86 balls needed a challenging response and the pair provided the partisan crowd with the sort of entertainment which enthrals the limited-overs spectator. Yet it required two audacious boundaries in the last two overs, the second by Titans captain, Mark Davis off Stefan Jacobs, to clinch victory and two points.
Rutherford, who received the Man-of-the-Match award for his league career best total of 130 not out, was in a reflective mood after the day game ended under floodlights. With his top-order reduced to 17 for four by the middle of the eighth over, Gauteng were in dire straits. The former Kiwi skipper must have been in a cold sweat. He had, after all, won the toss and felt the pitch was worth every run of their final total of 227 for five. But in the end it was not to be enough. And he was forced to bat with a runner for the last 80 runs of his innings after injuring his groin. Although he gave a sharp chance to Rudolf Steyn in the covers at 76 and the score at 145 for five, he held the innings together.
Source: Pretoria News
Date-stamped : 15 Oct97 - 22:18