Given first use by their hosts of a slowish pitch producing variable bounce, the visitors battled to make progress from the outset, quickly losing their first wicket.  Thereafter they were reduced to grinding out runs at an average of just two to the over as they struggled to come to terms with the conditions - best illustrated by their managing to eke out just three singles from the five-over bowling powerplay.  A major contributory factor to that dismal performance was a three-wicket burst in his first ten deliveries by seamer Paul Muller, which destroyed the Cape Town top order to leave them wallowing at 29 for four.

That brought Dominic Telo and Wessel Olwagen together, but after 15 more minutes of the same painstaking progress (eight of the first 17 overs were maidens), Telo eventually decided that matters could not be allowed to continue in that vein.  As the side's premier batsman it thus fell to him to take matters into his hands, and having himself managed just three singles from 18 balls, he launched his counterattack in over 20.  He was missed almost immediately from an awkward swirling catch skied to point, but finished the over having struck three fours therein and never really looked back thereafter.  Olwagen held up his end too, finishing with a late six and a four to take their stand to 71 in 16 overs - Cape Town's highest fifth-wicket partnership against Victoria in the past 15 seasons.

That stand was a rare moment of dominance for the visitors though, and once finally broken it was followed by two more quick wickets as Cape Town slumped to 114 for seven.  By then Telo had reached a hard-working 63-ball fifty with five fours, quickly adding a six as he increasingly began getting on top of the bowling.  As the last remaining batsman with just four overs remaining in the innings and not yet 150 on the board though, he was obliged to keep chancing his arm - and in the same over after being dropped a second time, he finally holed out on the long off boundary against the part-time off spin of Victoria's captain Warren Wyngaard.  Thereafter all that remained for the visitors was to scramble as many as they could, ultimately managing eleven singles from the last three overs to finish with a final total of 152.

It was not an imposing total by any means, but given the difficult batting conditions Cape Town nevertheless harboured not unrealistic hopes of still being able to defend it successfully.  A two-wicket burst by opening bowler Rory Cullinan added fuel to those beliefs, giving Victoria a bad start at 29 for three after nine overs.  Opening bat Wilmarc Beukes stood firm however, and found increasingly effective support thereafter as the home side's middle order proved a tough nut to crack.  It did require some initial consolidation though, and the visitors would probably have considered themselves still in charge of proceedings at the mid-innings drinks break, which Victoria took at 64 for three after 23 overs - needing a further 90 from the last 22 overs at a challenging four to the over.

This task soon became even steeper, as the home side then lost their fourth wicket almost immediately after the resumption of play.  After a period of settling in though, new bat Gareth Dreyer struck two fours from the 32nd over to signal the start of an irreversible change in fortunes.  With Beukes turning over the strike to him with regular singles, Dreyer produced a level of fluent scoring that only Telo had previously managed to achieve, and a flurry of strokes that brought him eleven runs personally from the 36th over registered their fifty partnership inside 10½ overs.  The game had thereby effectively been won and lost, although Cape Town had certainly not helped their own cause along the way by conceding 15 wides and a no-ball despite having an already small total to defend.

Beukes thereafter stayed almost to the end, having reached an epic 111-ball fifty that included just two boundaries - the first having taken him 105 balls to find.  His loss an over before the end was inconsequential to the final result, and the winning runs were duly struck as a matter of course with 14 balls to spare.  Thus Cape Town's 2011/12 Limited Overs season ended with an identical record to that of last season's campaign - two wins and two losses that placed them in the middle of the five-team Pool, behind the two 1A teams but as the best of the three 1B sides.

Match photo's