After narrowly escaping defeat against Western Province, the Dafabet Warriors will be looking to tighten the screws on their performances as the CSA 4-Day Series reaches its halfway point, Sinethemba Qeshile said on Monday.
After determined knocks by Jordan Hermann (98) and skipper Matthew Breetzke (52), the Warriors wicketkeeper/batsman hunkered down at the Newlands Cricket Ground, facing nearly 30 overs to finish not out on 34 from 172 balls and help steer the side to a share of the spoils against their coastal rivals.
While ideally hunting for the win, the diminutive right-hander was pleased with the stalemate and said it was important that they did not lose.
“We were behind for large parts of the game, conditions weren’t always on our side and it was difficult to get into a position of strength.
“Given the game situation, it was pretty self-explanatory that we would play for a draw.
“We aimed to avoid losing two matches in a row away from home because that makes the task very difficult with only two matches left before the break,” Qeshile said.
Starting their campaign with a draw against the North West Dragons in their opening red-ball match, they were humbled by Boland in Paarl, losing by an innings and 11 runs after the hosts posted 500 all out in their first innings.
The WP game was almost viewed as a means of kick-starting their season again, and for much of the opening exchanges, it looked like that when the Warriors reduced the hosts to 33/5 in the 15th over.
However, centuries by George Linde (152) and Eddie Moore (127) saw the home side pile on 464 in their first innings.
Having lost Jiveshan Pillay to injury on the field, the Warriors set about the first innings total short a batsman.
Beyers Swanepoel and Breetzke struck 65 and 52, respectively, as the visitors were bundled out for 266.
Qeshile said while conditions did become more favourable to the batsmen as the match progressed, he believes they could have been more ruthless when they had WP reeling early on day one.
WP batted again, declaring on 162/8 after a half-century by Linde (57) and 47 runs from the bat of David Bedingham, leaving the Warriors to chase down 361 runs for victory and little more than a day to achieve it.
The gritty Qeshile knock perfectly complemented the Hermann and Breetzke innings, as the Warriors held on for a well-earned stalemate.
“In the first innings, our aim as a batting unit was to just give all we could, even though we were a batter down, we needed to back ourselves and get as close to the score as we could,” Qeshile said.
“In the second innings, given the wickets we had in hand, we knew that it would take a huge effort from everyone to get something from the game.
“It may not have been the result we wanted, but it makes all the hard work we put in during preseason worth it.”
The Warriors’ next assignment is against the Lions in Johannesburg starting on Thursday next week before returning home to face the Titans in mid-December.
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