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Titans dent Cobras' hopes

Cape Town - The Titans showed great resolve as they ground out a two-wicket win over the Cape Cobras in their MTN40 clash at Newlands on Friday.   

The Titans reached their target of 136 for the loss of eight wickets with five overs to spare.

The Cobras, who won the toss, were dismissed for 135 all out after 37.3 overs.

The result means that the Cobras are still winless after four matches in this competition.

The Cobras' new-ball pair of Charl Langeveldt and Rory Kleinveldt raised their side's hopes by bagging three scalps (3/23) before the Titans' chase reached the fifth over but captain Jacques Rudolph (39) kept the scoreboard ticking over with six boundaries.

After Rudolph's departure Farhaan Behardien (33) and Faf du Plessis (32) continued to offer resistance and once they departed victory was well in sight, although Langeveldt (4/34), Robin Peterson (1/22) and his fellow spinner Claude Henderson (1/23) halted their charge to the finish.

Earlier, the Cobras' decision to bat first backfired on them as they learnt to their regret that the spongy two-paced wicket made batting a hazardous occupation.

As wickets started falling at regular intervals, opening batsman Andrew Puttick (46) stubbornly defied the conditions and the Titans' attack to emerge as one of only four batsmen to reach double figures by the time the innings crumbled in the 38th over.

Batting partnership statistics also made for poor reading as only three yielded more than 20 runs, with the Puttick-Peterson 7th wicket stand the best with 28 runs.

The Cobras lost six wickets inside the first 19 overs (71/6) but Peterson (18) and Kleinveldt (22) each managed two boundaries in their fightback efforts to help steer their side's total to a somewhat defendable 135 runs, given the bowler-friendly conditions.

Seamer Ethy Mbhalati (3/21) who won the 'Man-of-the-Match' award was the pick of the Titans attack and started the rot in the Cobras' batting by capturing the first two wickets to fall.

Medium pacer Mario Olivier (2/13) offered splendid support and his six overs went at a miserly economy rate of two runs to the over.

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