Having been well and truly pummelled by Claremont the day before, Cape Town finished a black weekend with another comprehensive defeat – this time on home soil at the hands of Ottoman, who took sweet revenge for Cape Town overcoming them the previous weekend.
With Cape Town having lost two bowlers from the day before due to unavailability, they squared up for this encounter looking somewhat thin in the bowling department – and having put their guests in to bat first notwithstanding, the morning evolved into a drawn-out stress session for home team skipper Tristan Coetzee, as he struggled to find viable solutions for where exactly his overs were going to come from.
The visitors began relatively conservatively, progressing carefully to 11-0 from the first five overs, but their opening pair was just beginning to find their touch when Nathan Johnson – having already conceded five wides – benefitted from a surprise loose drive sliced to point in his opening over. While he subsequently tightened up his line, it was quickly apparent how much the home side were struggling to find both penetration and to fill the fifth bowler’s quota – and with there being limited options in both respects, Ottoman skipper Mujaahid Toffar and new man in Faheem Adams were allowed to settle and then establish themselves at the crease.
Indeed, by this stage Toffar was well comfortable with proceedings, and finding the boundary rope four times over the course of six overs allowed him to raise the fifty partnership with Adams by some 20 minutes after the first drinks break. His own fifty followed 15 minutes thereafter, having struck seven fours, and at 106-1 after 28 overs, Coetzee was obliged to use up some of the preciously few overs from his new-ball pairing in the hope of achieving a much-needed breakthrough. That breakthrough wasn’t achieved though, and Toffar continued growing in fluency until Adams – largely content up until then to turn over the strike with a regular flow of singles – now too began upping the ante.
Thus Cape Town found themselves staring somewhat down the barrel at 152-1 after 36 overs, shortly after the second drinks break. It thus again came as something of a surprise when Johnson again returned to the attack and immediately induced a loose drive from Adams into the covers in his first over back. The breakthrough was finally achieved, and any relief it afforded might even have been decisive had the catch offered by Toffar on 83* from the final ball of that same over, also been held. The chance was spilled though, and Toffar reached his hundred some 20 minutes later before unleashing a flurry of boundaries.
At 204-2 with six overs remaining, the home side were seemingly facing a 250-plus target, but with Coetzee now able to return to his two best bowlers for those final six overs, Jaden Rose rewarded him by grabbing three wickets – including that of Toffar for 119 from 145 balls, with two sixes and eleven fours – in the first two of his. The momentum could not be stopped though, and 20 from the last two overs left Cape Town with a significant challenge to overcome in requiring 243 for victory.
They set off in pursuit of that daunting target with their customary gusto, Coetzee and opening partner Jamie Marillier smashing 27 from the first three overs. It was promising but rather frenetic stuff, and having already cracked two further sixes in the sixth over, Coetzee chanced his arm for a third next ball and sliced Otoman’s debutant overseas left-arm spinner Saood Ali to point instead. It took Marillier a while to lose his momentum, striking three more fours off the next two overs, but the visitors’ back-up spinners progressively smothered the scoring rate very effectively thereafter, preventing Cape Town from finding the boundary again for the next 20 overs. Having reached the highest score of his short Cape Town First XI career to date, Marillier then fell trying to break the shackles, and Cape Town had it all to do at 89-2 at the first drinks break.
Still, their rapid start had kept the required run rate at still manageable levels, so Mathew Goles and Josh Chippendale were content to push the singles and take the occasional two as they sought to build a platform from which an assault could be launched. A sudden six from Chippendale broke this pattern that had been established over the preceding half-hour, and their fifty partnership followed in the next over as the home side positioned themselves for the final push, needing 102 from the last 19 overs with eight wickets in hand.
But that assault never happened. At this juncture Ali had Chippendale hit straight to cover, his opening partner Mogamat Fredericks grabbed another wicket of his own three overs later, and at the second drinks break Cape Town found themselves now needing an increasingly improbable 90 from 13. They still had their main run-scorer Goles at the crease though, and as subdued as he’d been, he was on the brink of another half-century for the home side. But succumbing to the scoreboard pressure, he holed out on the boundary on 49, and it was left to Cape Town’s shaky middle-order batting to get them over the line.
For a while they made it look possible, as Craig Jeffery put the sweep and dab to good use in a run-a-ball sixth wicket stand that cut the runs required to 50 by the 44th over. But that was still more than seven to the over, on a slow pitch against an old ball that together never looked likely to allow that, and in their attempts to hit out the end came quickly. The patrolling visiting outfielders missed nothing as big shot after big shot flew unerringly to them, with Fredericks and leg-spinner Mohmmed Vali together benefitting to share four wickets in as many overs between them. And just like that the contest was done, with a confused run out to end things providing a somewhat fitting conclusion to what had been an unstructured run chase that unreleased pressure ultimately tipped into desperation.
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