South African Sports News – 6 January

Hashim Amla

Proteas in com­mand­ing pos­i­tion at Newlands
South Africa was in a good pos­i­tion against England at tea on the third day of the third test at Newlands yes­ter­day. The home side were 183 runs ahead of the vis­it­ors as skip­per Graeme Smith and Hashim Amla (pic­tured) bat­ted for the entire after­noon ses­sion lead­ing up till the tea inter­val. The Proteas notched up 109 runs between lunch and tea as they reached an impress­ive 165/1.

Smith and Amla’s part­ner­ship stood at 134 and was the first cen­tury stand of the match. Smith was unbeaten on 65 at the inter­val, with Amla hav­ing sur­passed his cap­tain to go to the break on 73 not out. Amla was some­what lucky to get away with a couple of thick edges, but he also pun­ished the England bowl­ers on numer­ous occa­sions and played some attract­ive strokes all around the ground ... Continued

South African Sports News – 23 December

Friedel de Wet

So close, yet so far for Proteas
England sur­vived a hor­rendous bat­ting col­lapse to earn a nail-biting draw on the final day of the first Castle test match against South Africa at SuperSport Park in Centurion on Sunday. Paul Collingwood and No 11 Graham Onions were required to fend off 20 deliv­er­ies as England reached the close of play on 228 for the loss of nine wick­ets in their second innings.

Paceman Friedel de Wet (pic­tured), with the second new ball in hand, sparked the col­lapse as five English wick­ets fell for the addi­tion of just 13 runs.  De Wet pro­duced an excel­lent final spell that saw him cap­ture three wick­ets for just 11 runs off seven overs. The debutant ended the innings with the impress­ive fig­ures of four for 55 off 23 overs ... Continued

South African Sports News – 9 December

Bafana Bafana

Bafana get tough draw
Bafana Bafana (pic­tured) will play Mexico in their open­ing Group A match of the 2010 World Cup finals, which kick-off on June 11 at the new multi-billion rand Soccer City sta­dium. Also in Bafana’s group are 1934 World Cup win­ners Uruguay and 1998 vic­tors France.

Fifa sec­ret­ary gen­eral Jerome Valcke and South African born Hollywood movie star, Charlize Theron, con­duc­ted Friday night’s draw at the International Convention Centre. Two thou­sand guests and 800 local and inter­na­tional journ­al­ists atten­ded the high pro­file event watched by an estim­ated live tele­vi­sion audi­ence of around 200 mil­lion view­ers ... Continued

South African Sports News – 2 December

Alviro Petersen

Up and down week­end leaves Proteas in per­il­ous pos­i­tion
England hardly worked up a sweat in cruis­ing to a com­fort­able seven-wicket vic­tory over South Africa in the fourth MTN one-day inter­na­tional (ODI) at Axxess DSL St George’s in Port Elizabeth on Sunday.

James Anderson pro­duced an out­stand­ing dis­play of swing bowl­ing, which helped England grab the ini­ti­at­ive against the tent­at­ive Proteas bats­men. Anderson des­troyed the South African innings by tak­ing 5/23 off 10 overs as the Proteas recor­ded a dis­mal 119 all out, their low­est total in an ODI at home ... Continued

South African Sports News – 25 November

Charl Langeveldt

England cruise home against Proteas
Paul Collingwood scored a superb unbeaten cen­tury to steer England to a com­fort­able seven-wicket win over South Africa in the second MTN one-day inter­na­tional (ODI) at SuperSport Park in Centurion on Sunday.

Chasing the home side’s total of 250/9, England cantered to 252/3 to secure vic­tory with 24 balls of their innings remain­ing and take a 1–0 series lead after the first match of the series was washed out due to per­sist­ent rain. Collingwood made 105 runs off 110 balls while notch­ing up seven fours and two sixes. The 33-year-old also made a use­ful con­tri­bu­tion with the ball, pick­ing up 2/24 dur­ing South Africa’s innings ... Continued

South African Sports News — 18 November

Graeme Smith

South African open­ers put England to the sword
Graeme Smith (pic­tured) and Loots Bosman pro­pelled South Africa to a crush­ing 84-run vic­tory over England in their Standard Bank Pro 20 match at SuperSport Park in Centurion on Sunday. The Proteas amassed 241/6 in their allot­ted 20 overs, which was their second highest total in inter­na­tional Pro 20-cricket.

In reply, England could only muster 157/8, which was their biggest defeat in this format of the inter­na­tional game. The win helped South Africa square the Pro 20 series 1–1 after they lost to England by one run on Friday at the Wanderers. Continued

South African Sports News – 4 November

Francois Hougaard

Bulls tame Cheetahs to take Currie Cup
It was all smiles for the Loftus Versfeld faith­ful in Pretoria on Saturday night when their darlings, the mighty Blue Bulls, defeated a stub­born Cheetahs out­fit 36–24 to become 2009 Absa Currie Cup Premier Division cham­pi­ons. The Bulls stormed to a 24–0 lead after just 25 minutes cour­tesy of a try from right wing Francois Hougaard (pic­tured with ball in hand) and a brace from left wing Bryan Habana, but the Cheetahs, as always, staged a spir­ited fight back to close the gap to just six points after 48 minutes. Continued

South African Sports News – 28 October

Joseph Henyekane

Arrows shoot down hap­less Ajax
Golden Arrows were crowned MTN8 cham­pi­ons in Soweto on Saturday night when they crushed Ajax Cape Town 6–0 in one-sided MTN8 final at the Orlando Stadium. In the pro­cess, Arrows won their first major trophy and a record
R8-million winner-takes-all prize.

The match was effect­ively over as a con­test after 20 minutes when the KwaZulu Natal out­fit took an unbeat­able 2–0 lead cour­tesy of some pos­it­ive attack­ing soc­cer and some shock­ing defend­ing from a woe­ful Ajax out­fit. Despite Ajax’s poor dis­play it was an excel­lent win for Arrows and their 38-year-old coach Manqoba Mngqithi, who is one of a num­ber of prom­ising young coaches in the Premier Soccer League (PSL). Mngqithi deserves applause for his pos­it­ive tac­tics of attack­ing and tak­ing the game to Ajax and, if he keeps up this sort of approach, it will surely not be too long before Arrows win another major tour­na­ment. Continued

South African Sports News — 21 October

Jacques-Louis Potgieter

Cheetahs stun Sharks in Durban
Cometh the hour cometh the man and that man was none other than Free State Cheetahs fly­half Jacques-Louis Potgieter (pic­tured) who slot­ted a last minute drop goal against the Sharks at the Absa Stadium in Durban on Saturday, to book his side a place in the 2009 Absa Currie Cup Premier Division Final.

Potgieter’s stroke of genius spelt doom for the Sharks who were lead­ing 19–18 with just one minute to go. However, a solid scrum by the Cheetahs set the plat­form for Potgieter to deliver the killer blow and ensure an excel­lent 23–21 win for the vis­it­ors. It was a dev­ast­at­ing blow for the Sharks and their loyal sup­port­ers who had a great sea­son with 12 wins from 14 league out­ings. Continued

Sharks to face Cheetahs in semis ... and other sports news

Stefan Terblanche

Sharks to face Cheetahs in semis
The Sharks man­aged to over­come a spir­ited effort by Griquas in their final league match of the sea­son to qual­ify for the 2009 Absa Currie Cup Premier Division semi-finals when they defeated the dia­mond miners 45–30 at GWK Park in Kimberley on Saturday afternoon.

The KwaZulu-Natalians outscored their oppon­ents by seven tries to four and deserved their win, but will have to tighten up their defence con­sid­er­ably if they hope to pre­vail in Saturday’s semi-final against the resur­gent Cheetahs at the Absa Stadium in Durban. The Sharks missed 25 tackles against Griquas and con­ceded some soft tries with some of their defend­ers show­ing a dis­tinct lack of com­mit­ment. Griquas centre Barry Geel exploited these defens­ive frailties to grab a hat trick of tries with Sarel Pretorius adding another to ensure a bonus point for the home team ... Continued

Proteas choke yet again and other sporting news ...

Graeme Smith

Proteas choke yet again in major tour­na­ment
The Proteas failed to shake off their unpleas­ant label of chokers with regard to their per­form­ances in major International Cricket Council (ICC) tour­na­ments, when they were unce­re­mo­ni­ously bundled out of the ICC Champions trophy in Centurion on Sunday.

Graeme Smith’s men were defeated by a resur­gent England and fell 23 runs short of a vic­tory tar­get of 324 to fin­ish on 301 for nine wick­ets in their allot­ted 50 overs. It was a bit­terly dis­ap­point­ing defeat for the Proteas who went into this tour­na­ment as clear favour­ites, but ended it in shame as they lost two out of their open­ing three games for an early exit ... Continued

Boks edge All Blacks to win Tri-Nations and other sporting news

Francois Steyn

Boks edge All Blacks to win Tri-Nations
The Springboks silenced their crit­ics and detract­ors alike when they defeated the All Blacks 32–29 in Hamilton on Saturday to secure vic­tory in the 2009 Tri-Nations and cement their repu­ta­tion as one of the greatest Springbok teams of all time. The vic­tory was a great achieve­ment by the Boks who recor­ded their third suc­cess­ive win against the All Blacks for the first time in 60 years, with the bonus of adding the Tri-Nations to their 2007 Rugby World Cup tri­umph and series vic­tory over the 2009 British Lions.

The Boks went into this match as dis­tinct under­dogs after their dis­ap­point­ing 21–6 defeat to the Wallabies in Brisbane the pre­vi­ous week­end, but only needed a single bonus point to secure the cham­pi­on­ship. However, they ended up tak­ing it in style by stand­ing up to the New Zealanders and match­ing them blow for blow with no quarter asked or given. Continued

Dust off your running shoes ...

Since spring has sprung it is time to dust off those run­ning shoes or cyc­ling shorts and start to shed a few of those extra kilo’s that have crept up over the winter months. Here are a few idea to get your motiv­ated to do some exercise!

The Crazy Store Table Mountain Challenge takes place on Saturday 12 September and is a 35km trail run around Cape Town’s world fam­ous Table Mountain. Both pro­fes­sion­als and novices can enjoy this off-road run on the slopes of this moun­tain, which is a final­ist in the New 7 Wonders of Nature. If you are feel­ing up to the chal­lenge Continued

Boks subdue Wallabies and other Sporting News from South Africa

Bryan Habana

Boks sub­due Wallabies to inch closer to Tri-Nations glory
The Springbok rugby team are rid­ing the crest of a wave at the moment and it seems at though noth­ing short of the Apocalypse can stop the Boks from win­ning this year’s Tri-Nations com­pet­i­tion after they defeated the Wallabies 32–25 at the Subaico Oval in Perth, Australia on Saturday. The Boks outscored their oppon­ents by four tries to three with fly­half Morné Steyn con­trib­ut­ing a valu­able 10 points with the boot.

The South Africans got stuck into the Australians from the get go and were already 12–0 up after just 10 minutes cour­tesy of tries from scrum­half Fourie Du Preez (con­ver­ted by Steyn) and centre Jaque Fourie. Steyn then added three more points six minutes later when the Wallabies were pen­al­ised for an infringe­ment, push­ing the score to 15 without reply ... Continued

This Week in South African Sports — 26 August 2009

Mbulaeni Mulaudzi

Rich medal haul for South African trio in Berlin
Mbulaeni Mulaudzi had the last laugh at the World Athletics Championships at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin on Sunday when he ran a superb 800m race to clock 1 min, 45.29 secs to secure a gold medal for South Africa. Mulaudzi did not run par­tic­u­larly well in his semi-final heat on Friday, fin­ish­ing fourth and hav­ing to wait to see if he would qual­ify for the final as the second of two fast­est losers, which he did by the smal­lest of margins.

And so, des­pite his some­what tepid per­form­ance in the semi-finals, the 29-year-old Mulaudzi found him­self in the final against the world’s best 800m run­ners, includ­ing the likes of defend­ing cham­pion Alfred Yego from Kenya and Yusuf Kamel of Bahrain ... Continued