Most alarmingly though, with the University of Cape Town and Durbanville both picking up their second Two-Day win of the season, Cape Town are now in the bottom three places on the log together with Primrose and United, as the only teams left with just a single Two-Day win to their credit. As three teams are due to be relegated at the end of the season, this means that Cape Town WILL be suffering this fate - unless they can win at least one of their remaining two matches in the competition.

The destiny of this particular match had been shaped on the first day. Although they certainly did not help themselves by playing some appallingly poor cricket, nothing much went right for the visitors throughout. Even winning the toss for the first time in nine matches helped naught. Cape Town duly inserted their hosts on a pitch offering a measure of early assistance, but their new ball bowling pair was unable to make the breakthrough. Nevertheless, back-up seamer Luke Petersen removed both UCT openers in his first spell, and with the students at 68 for three after an-hour-and-a-half's play, matters still looked relatively manageable for the visitors. It was to be the high-water mark of their achievements though, as thereafter each subsequent batsman cashed in on some rather ordinary bowling to condemn Cape Town to a very long day indeed.

It began with one of those ironic twists that so frequently seem to haunt Cape Town - it would be Lloyd Moore, their vice-captain of the season before, who was most responsible for the subsequent humiliation of an already struggling Cape Town attack. After hitting their new ball bowling pair out of the attack with a six and five fours, he breezed to 44 off 43 balls before surviving a sharp chance to short leg. Already going well, it would be yet another extremely costly miss. His batting partner Adrian Kritzinger got stuck in from the outset too, and the pair each barrelled along at a-run-a-ball thereafter, untroubled by anything that Cape Town could throw at them. Moore duly went to his fifty off just 54 balls, and by the luncheon interval thay had already added 78 in just 13 overs together.

Bad as the morning session was for Cape Town, it was merely the dress rehearsal for what was to come. Toiling on a by-now near perfect batting surface under a brutally hot sun in sweltering humidity, the visitors grew increasingly ragged as they were put to the sword with mounting levels of ferocity and effectiveness. Moore and Kritzinger needed just four more overs after the interval to storm to a hundred partnership, and it came as somewhat of a surprise when the latter miscued to mid off almost immediately thereafter to narrowly miss out on his own half-century. His dismissal offered no let-up for the beleaguered Cape Town side though, as Moore swept on seemingly inevitably to a century against his former teammates, en route to adding a further 53 for the fifth wicket with an initially vulnerable-looking but subsequently increasingly fluent Peter Laing.

With the students cruising at 221 for four after just 51 overs, the visitors were well and truly down and out, having already conceded four sixes and 29 fours. However, Petersen's military medium-pacers staved off a complete and utter rout, castling Moore, Laing and Marcel Brache in his second spell to finish with figures of five for 57 - highly creditable considering that he has not yet bowled 40 overs in his entire Cape Town First XI career, and simply outstanding in comparison to the returns of his mostly vastly more experienced teammates. It was not achieved without cost though, Brache and Chris Cooke cashing in to massacre a tired attack to the tune of 47 runs in four overs. UCT thus finished with the third-highest score conceded by Cape Town in their last 267 fielding efforts spanning the last almost eleven seasons, with the eight sixes struck being the joint-highest ever conceded in that time and the first occasion in which every Cape Town bowler used has suffered that indignity at least once.

Although perhaps understandably shell-shocked from what they had endured in the field, the conditions were nevertheless there from which Cape Town's batsmen could capitalise in their own turn. Sadly though, the image of all those soaring boundary hits conceded seemed printed indelibly in their minds. Seeking to emulate this, they thus adopted a come-what-may shot-a-ball approach - and instead ended up tossing away their wickets one after the other in perishing with all guns blazing - bowled out in less than 44 overs in ideal batting conditions. Of the top nine batsmen, only Marc de Beer was not the architect of his own demise - and indeed was looking good for his fourth successive half-century before being adjudged lbw somewhat unluckily as he pushed well forward. 

Other than that though, Damian Thornton played a breezy cavalier knock of 44 off 47 balls, being dropped once and flirting many more times with the outstretched fingertips of leaping fielders as he - like the rest of his charges - persisted in trying to clear the infield as their main avenue of run scoring. He eventually fell lbw hitting across legspinner Dave Banelli, leaving the last remaining batsman Rory O'Brien watching from the other end as UCT skipper Dean Forward needed just nine deliveries to clean up the badly exposed tail and secure an all-but-certain match-winning lead of 127 on the first innings.

Seizing the chance to enforce the follow-on with four overs remaining in the day, Forward then nabbed the first wicket of the second innings in the very first over too - providing a perfectly fitting end to a miserable day for his hapless opponents. Mark Ritchie had reached his 2 500th career run for the Cape Town First XI just moments before - it was just a pity that Cape Town had to follow-on in order to afford him the opportunity of doing so that day.

Cape Town at least rallied for the second day's play, and though the minor miracle that they needed to save the match was not forthcoming, the visitors to their credit at least made a match out of it - taking UCT into the final hour of play before they were able to clinch victory. For the first hour on Day Two things looked promising indeed for Cape Town, as overnight batsmen Ritchie and Marc de Beer were largely untroubled in adding a further 62 runs. De Beer in particular seemed to be finding his touch nicely as he crunched five boundaries in the space of 13 balls, but perhaps it was a case of being just too easy - and he tossed it away with a loose stroke to point. It was all the opportunity that the students needed, and first Forward and then Simon Minnaar seized on it to pick up two quick wickets each. As a result, within just 45 minutes a promising 74 for one had slumped to a rather shaky 87 for five, with half of Cape Town's top six back in the hut without scoring.

However, in an innings every bit as gritty as his effort of the week before had been carefree, Thornton dug in to halt the slide. Joined by Rory O'Brien, they began clawing their side back into the match, and though each enjoyed moments of fortune they finally erased the first innings deficit without further loss. O'Brien lived a particularly charmed life, being dropped three times between five and 41, and after having scored his first fifty for the Cape Town First XI in his debut innings in October 2006, he now in his 31st innings finally reached the milestone again with his ninth boundary. By then he and Thornton had already added over 70 together for the sixth wicket, but it was not long thereafter that that man Forward again got the breakthrough by finding the outside edge of Thornton's bat to finally crack his resistance. O'Brien continued on his merry way for a little while longer though, smashing six more boundaries in the space of three overs to race to a career-best 83 off 89 balls before - like de Beer before him - trying one big shot too many, and edging Forward to slip. It gave the home team captain his five-for, to go with the four sticks he had already collected in Cape Town's first innings.

Although holding an overall lead of only 73 runs with seven second-innings wickets already down, the die had been cast and Cape Town persisted with an assault reminiscient of their first innings approach. Matthew Olsen thus lofted two sixes and four fours in his first 22 balls faced, but as impressive as it looked while it was coming off, such frenetic hitting held little real promise as a means of saving the match. Consequently, Minnaar's third spell wrapped up the last three wickets within as many overs as the tail again failed to provide support, and the students' target had been pegged at 112 to win with a full 45 overs remaining.

With the conditions still holding little for the batsmen to fear, it was not nearly large enough to give Cape Town any realistic hope of staging a successful defence. Still, Richard Lotter bowled a pacy and aggressive opening spell to claim the first two wickets. Chris Arkell stood firm for an hour-and-a-half at the top of the order though, and though the home side were looking less than convincing at 59 for four when he too fell, their remorseless progress of three runs to the over had still kept them well on course to win. Kritzinger and Laing then each produced useful contributions once more to take UCT to within sight of victory, and though Lotter's reintroduction into the attack accounted for them both to give the tall opening bowler far and away his best return of an otherwise rather poor season with the ball thus far, by then only six runs were still needed.

Match photos