van Jaarsveld stars in Titans' win

Titans 179 for 7 (van Jaarsveld 57) beat Dolphins 126 for 5 by 9 runs (D-L Method)
Scorecard

Martin van Jaarsveld blazed a half-century as the Titans walked away with a nine-run win in a rain-interrupted match against Dolphins in the first game of the Standard Bank Pro20 tournament at Durban.

Winning the toss and batting first, the Titans got away to a flyer with AB de Villiers (27 off 19) and Goolam Bodi (20 off 18) setting the pace for the innings. van Jaarsveld increased the tempo, scoring his runs off just 44 balls, before a few quick wickets brought the Dolphins back into the picture. The final onslaught came from Pierre de Bruyn as he struck a six and a four in his 19 off nine balls to take the Titans to a creditable 179 for 7 in 20 overs.

Zahir Abrahim was the pick of the bowlers for Dolphins, taking 3 for 30 in his four overs while Nantie Hayward picked up 1 for 25 in his full allocation.

The Dolphins innings never gained any momentum, as they lost four wickets in the opening nine overs. They managed to keep abreast of the asking rate, though. Dale Benkenstein and Ahmed Amla (22 off 22) put on 33 in four overs to leave the game evenly poised after 15.1 overs when rain had the players off and the Dolphins on 126 for 5.

With the rain not letting up the Titans were declared the winners by nine runs according to the Duckworth-Lewis method.