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Big guns back for Pro20 final
23/04/2008 18:57 - (SA)
Durban - With all their Protea big guns back from the tour of India and ready to fire the final salvos of the 2007-2008 season the Dolphins and the Titans will battle it out for the Pro20 championship title in what promises to be a stunning final at Kingsmead in Durban on Friday night.
A few weeks back neither side looked likely to be contesting the final. More so the Dolphins who will certainly start this game as the underdogs.
But inspired performances, notably from their bowlers and fielders in the last few matches, has been nothing but sensational ending with this game being played at Kingsmead.
Now, backed by home supporters who are expected to fill the famous old ground to the rafters, the Dolphins are determined to turn around a season that saw them fall away dramatically in both the SuperSport Series - won in tearaway style by the Titans - and the MTN ODI campaign, with a responsive challenge on Friday.
Pro20 cricket has thrown up many surprises since being introduced and the two semi-finals of last weekend that saw the Titans come from behind to overhaul the Cobras at Newlands and the Dolphins do a complete demolition job on the Eagles - a team that had humbled them only a week or two earlier at the same ground in the first round - has set up a final of intriguing probabilities.
Last weekend there were some 11000 spectators at the ground. Come Friday and the "House Full" signs could be out especially more so in that the weather forecast is for a warm and clear night.
Wear green clothing
The call has gone out for Dolphins fans to turn Kingsmead into a sea of green for the occasion by wearing green clothing.
Whether that will be enough to intimidate the Titans or not remains to be seen.
Generally this season the Dolphins have not clicked as a unit. When their batting was good their bowling was decidedly off track. Then when the bowlers dominated - as has been the case in the current Pro20 programme - the batsmen have faltered.
In a mid-season switch Alfonso Thomas and Pierre de Bruin moved from Centurion to Durban and De Bruin has proved to be a match winner in his allrounder role that includes taking the 'keeper"s gloves from Darryn Smit when the latter chose to test the waters with his successful leg-break bowling midway through an innings.
Then there is the explosive Grant Rowley, recalled from the wilderness for this series, who can match the best of the big hitters in support of openers Hashim Amla and Imraan Khan who could turn an innings on its head with Ahmed Amla, Jon Kent, Johan Louw and Morne van Vuuren to support bowlers Yusuf Abdullah - the lefthander is back to his best form as a swing bowler - Louw and Saidi Mlongo.
Gulam Bodi, Albie and Morne Morkel, Johan Myburgh, Dale Steyn, Andre Nel and AB de Villiers, if all are available for selection when the Titans come to Durban, are match winners in their own right in any form of cricket let alone the 'kaboom' style of Pro20.
In the end it may all come down to the fielding skills for as we have seen so often this season a lot of key dismissals have come by way of the run-out route.
Whichever way it goes this is likely to provide a final worthy of the very best.
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Rugby
