It was Telo's second hundred in successive innings against Almar on the first evening that shaped the match's destiny, making him the first Cape Town batsman in the past 13 seasons to manage two centuries in the same season. He received admirable support almost all the way down the order though, the batsmen all cashing in to rack up the highest innings total recorded by either side in this fixture over the past 13 seasons. Despite a slow start that produced only 24 runs from the first 13 overs, they kept the home side's wickets column blank for almost 20 overs, allowing captain-for-the-day Damian Thornton to lay the foundation for what was to come. Tom Main chipped in with a typically breezy knock and the rest of the top five played their bit too, such that the visitors eased into a first-innings lead with six wickets and almost ten overs still in hand.
By then Telo had long since swept passed a 62-minute fifty, and once joined by Kyle Coetzer Cape Town's two premier batsmen in tandem racked up 77 together at virtually a-run-a-ball. Telo in the process cantered to his hundred off 110 balls, with a six and nine fours. Ultimately though, they both holed out on the boundary in successive overs, hitting the spinners Gareth Elliott and Liam Brittow back over their heads as the push to maximise their lead in the permitted 60 overs took top priority. The spin pairing thus shared Cape Town's last five wickets between them amidst the flow of runs as everyone hit out - the last three overs costing Almar 27 as the visitors pegged their overall lead at a healthy 73 runs when the overs ran out and bad light curtailed any further play for the day.
By that point however, play has already continued for more than an hour beyond the originally scheduled close of play, as the umpires sought to make up as many lost overs as possible. This was due to the day's play having begun some 30 minutes late, owing to the lingering effects of almost a week's rain leading up to the game. Cape Town thus inserted their hosts upon winning the toss, and André Olwagen made full use of the conditions to claim the first three wickets to fall. In fact, apart from a modest contribution by Almar's ex-Gloucestershire professional Steve Adshead, the home side's innings relied almost entirely on a 103-run fifth wicket stand between Marc de Beer and captain Zeke Snyman - the first three wickets fell for 31 and the last five for just 20. De Beer anchored the innings for almost two-and-a-half hours in compiling a measured 93-ball fifty, while Snyman was his usual fluent and aggressive self in his 69-ball half-century.
Once their stand had been broken through a silly run out though, they both fell within the space of three balls - allowing Kirk Wernars and Wayne Hendricks to run through the rest of the batting. Eventually the home side opted to declare at the fall of their ninth wicket, settling for what would normally have been a decent enough total - despite denying themselves a potential six overs' worth of further batting. Ultimately though, Telo's heroics would relegate their score to the realms of mediocrity by the end of the day's play, leaving Almar with too a large mountain to climb in terms of any realistic hopes of still being able to win the match.
As a result, the home side began their second innings at the start of Day Two with the main aim of just batting out the day to force a draw, any thoughts of pushing for victory being of secondary concern and firmly subject to how well matters transpired in their second innings. Geoff Dods did their plans in this regard no favours by dismissing both opening batsmen within his first three overs, but thereafter De Beer again settled in to prevent any further drama during the next hour-and-a-half.
Thus, with lunch only ten minutes away, Almar's chances of avoiding defeat were not looking too shabby - they still had seven second-innings wickets in hand, and had converted the deficit into an overall lead of 19 runs at this point. A rock-solid De Beer was once again the fulcrum of their resistance, Cape Town's vice-captain of the season before having established himself as an immovable presence at the crease, with his second half-century of the match already under his belt.
The introduction of Matthew Olsen's off breaks into the attack at this juncture produced an astonishing turn-around in fortune though, once again a run out providing an immediate breakthrough that ultimately led to three wickets falling in the over. The damage caused by this lapse of concentration proved irrepairable in terms of a home side recovery, and by 20 minutes after the interval Cape Town's spin twins Olsen and Main had bundled them out for a paltry 111. In a collapse of rare proportions, Almar's tail was completely obliterated - the last six batsmen were all dismissed in return for scoring just a single run between them - while De Beer, having amassed 174 runs in two completed innings against his former teammates this season, was forced to watch helplessly from the non-striker's end. Their six ducks in the innings were the joint-highest suffered by any Cape Town opposition over the past 13 seasons, the only other such instance being when Victoria was rolled for 102 in a Limited Overs encounter back in the 2005/06 season.
The dramatic turn of events left Cape Town needing to score just 39 runs for the victory that would put them back into the fray in terms of the competition, with an abundant supply of time and overs available in which to achieve them. Despite a Cape Town victory consequently being all but a foregone conclusion, Richard Slatem made them fight for every run. All aggression, he threw everything into his first three overs to capture three for two, as the visitors slumped to 12 for three in the face of his onslaught. With runs leaking at the other end though, he was only really delaying the inevitable, and Main brutally crushed any flickering Almar half-hopes by swinging two sixes and two fours off his next over to tie the scores. The visitors provided a last touch of drama by contriving to lose a fourth wicket at this point, but Cape Town sealed their well-deserved win off the very next delivery. Thus they bagged an extremely welcome haul of 24.825 bonus points, and doubtlessly gave their own morale a sorely needed boost for the remainder of the campaign ahead.
Match photo's