Lions and Titans must salvage what’s been an ugly end to cricket season

The end of the 2025-2026 cricket season feels a little underwhelming. 

After the thrill of a two-wicket win in Centurion that secured a spot in the World Test Championship final for the Proteas, Ryan Rickelton's double hundred in the New Year’s Test and a glitzy SA20, the highs of the season were probably impossible to sustain. 

It needn’t have, but the season is petering out. It’s the middle of April and the weather in Johannesburg, where the last match is being played, has been miserable. The Proteas limped out of the Champions Trophy, the coach resigned, Cricket SA (CSA) may face a court case and transformation continues to be a hot-button topic. 

Though not at as low an ebb as 2019, the public’s perception of CSA is trending downwards. 

Once more it has been left to the players to try to provide a distraction, while behind the scenes the administration tries to resolve the dissatisfaction of two unions — the Knights and the Warriors — for whom relegation to Division 2 would be devastating.

Hopefully, even devoid of their Proteas stars, the Lions and Titans can offer an intriguing match to end the season. Temba Bavuma’s presence for the Lions lends the Four-Day Series final at Wanderers added lustre, but there are also a host of players on the periphery of national recognition who will create enough of an edge. 

It’s also — as Titans captain Neil Brandt pointed out on Wednesday — a local derby, one that in the past decade has been extremely competitive, often involving high stakes.

This is the second time this season the two teams are meeting in a domestic final at the Wanderers.  In October the Lions, thanks to a devastating spell from Lutho Sipamla, blew away their neighbours in the T20 Challenge final. 

The Lions were the dominant team in the competition, only losing twice, one of those to the Titans, and were on an upward curve at the time of the final, a trend which continued into the start of the Four-Day competition where they won three of their first four matches.

The same can’t be said of their form at the moment. The primary reason is that they’ve watched more rain than played cricket in the past two weeks and even their preparation for the final has had to take place indoors.

They’ve had one innings of batting and one of bowling in two of their last three matches, and any sense of momentum heading into the final is absent 

“Though the bowlers have been bowling, the loads haven’t been as high as we would have liked,” said Lions captain Dominic Hendricks.

“Our skills won’t be affected. One good thing is that we are physically and mentally fresh, so I expect all our players will be ready for the encounter.”

While the Titans have also been affected by the weather, with two of their last three matches interrupted by rain, they have spent a lot more time on the field than their opponents. Dewald Brevis and Lhuan-dre Pretorius have batted magnificently in that period, each making centuries and along with Rivaldo Moonsamy, who scored 117 last week against Boland, their batting looks in good shape. 

They’ve relied on a few rookie seamers in the past two weeks, with Matthew Boast ruled out with a side strain, but Brandt is confident Lesego Kokohlabana, who made his first-class debut a fortnight ago, and Janco Smit, who played his first match last week, will make an impact at a venue that historically favours fast bowling.

“There’s definitely a long-term plan with both of them. It is very tough coming into a four-day match as a fast bowler because the bowling loads are not something they’re used to in club cricket. Lesego was broken for two days after his debut. Janco suffered as well, but it was encouraging to see, even though we had a lot of rain breaks, how he was able to keep his pace up.” 

The two sides have unique coaching challenges for the final. Richard das Neves, who has been a stand-in this season, has overseen preparations for the last time, with Rivash Gobind taking over as head coach next season, while Lions coach Russell Domingo has headed to Pakistan to take over as mentor of the Lahore Qalandars in the Pakistan Super League.

“Russ has managed us very well this season and has given Jimmy [Kgamadi) the assistant coach plenty of opportunities to act as head coach,” said Hendricks. 

“Russ will be adding his input virtually, so I don’t think it will be too different. Barring Russell, all the [coaching] staff is around, so it will be pretty much the same.”