Was it really the same team that won so handsomely in East London on Friday? It was difficult to believe it at a humid Kingsmead yesterday when the Dolphins maintained their sorry 100% home record by crumbling to defeat to an impressive Western Province outfit in the Standard Bank League.

The vagaries of cricket can be remarkable. On Friday, the Dolphins sauntered to a seven-wicket victory over title-chasers Border while Western Province were humiliated by lowly Easterns on their own turf.

You would never have known it yesterday. KwaZulu-Natal were hardly in the game as Province put together a clinical performance that was way beyond anything the home team could match.

If there were any faint hopes of contesting the League, those were finally squashed yesterday as the Dolphins lost their fourth consecutive match at home while the Northerns Titans clinched the title with two victories over Gauteng and Griquas at the weekend.

The Dolphins' last fixture against Northerns on February 10 is now of academic interest to the title-holders, but the home team will need to win it to avoid a qualifying playoff for the knockout Standard Bank Cup.

The visitors were quickly out of the blocks after Eric Simons won the toss and decided to bat. On an excellent batting surface, Province openers Lloyd Ferreira and Brian McMillan scored freely in the early overs before being pegged back. The landmark 15 overs finally realised a relatively modest 59 for the loss of Ferreira who skied a pull off the impressive Jannie Dreyer.

Although HD Ackerman scored at a brisk pace, the Province innings was a little weighed down by a plodding effort from McMillan who seemed to forget he was playing in the short version of the game. In retrospect, his dismissal for 32 in 83 balls was one of the turning points of the match as it signalled an upturn in Province's fortunes.

With Man of the Match Ackerman anchoring the innings with a fine 85 in 104 balls, but still pushing the score along at a decent rate, the real acceleration came from Paul Kirsten (20 in 15 balls) and Ashwell Prince (26 in 14 balls).

Nevertheless, with five overs to go and only 162 on the board, the Dolphins could feel that they had done a fair job of restricting the visitors to a gettable total with young guns Wade Wingfield (1/34 in nine overs), Dreyer (2/25 in seven overs) and Jon Kent (0/18 in five overs) having bottled up last season's champions quite effectively.

However, two disastrous overs - worth 27 - off Gary Gilder helped Province to add 55 in the last five overs, giving them a final total of 217/4 that skipper Simons neverthelesss believed was 30 shy of par.

He needn't have worried. Doug Watson set the stultifying tone of the Dolphins' reply by taking 32 balls to reach six runs as he and Andrew Hudson took over 10 overs to stagger to 25 for the first wicket.

Admittedly, the disciplined Western Province attack bowled an immaculate line and length, offering only one wide in a total of three extras, but the timid batsmen never attempted to challenge their authority.

While Hudson played some fine strokes in his 47 in 66 balls, his team never really recovered from their slow start. The former South African opener shared a solid partnership of 40 in 55 balls with skipper Errol Stewart but both fell in quick succession to soft caught-and-bowled dismissals to wrist-spinner Paul Adams who ripped the heart out of the middle order with 3/12 in seven overs, earning himself a bowling accolade.

Sure enough, the pressure - more than six to the over was required from the last 20 overs - proved too much for the inexperienced lower order and the descent into oblivion was swift as the innings was wrapped up for just 107 in only 35.3 overs.