South African Sports News — 18 November

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.

Ryan McLaren (1/26 in four overs), Dale Steyn (2/29 in four overs) and Albie Morkel (2/35 in four overs) all chipped in to restrict England to their paltry total. England’s bowl­ers, on the other hand, got car­ted all over the park as Smith and Bosman slammed 170 runs off 81 balls between them to shat­ter the pre­vi­ous world record of 145 runs for the open­ing wicket in inter­na­tional T20 cricket. Smith plundered 88 runs off 44 balls with eight bound­ar­ies and six sixes, and Bosman smashed 94 runs off 45 deliv­er­ies with five fours and nine sixes.

The South African attack, in stark con­trast, were superb as they bowled much fuller than their English coun­ter­parts and gave the vis­it­ing bats­men lim­ited options to score. Jonathan Trott (51 runs off 40 balls) and Kevin Pieterson (29 runs off 19 balls) top scored for England, but their efforts paled in com­par­ison to those of Smith and Bosman who were simply brilliant.

England and the Proteas’ next encounter will be a 50-over one day inter­na­tional (ODI) at the Wanderers on Friday and the English will be hop­ing to bounce back from their crush­ing loss, with a win. Friday’s match will be the first of five ODI’s between the two teams. Both sides will also play four test matches against one another, which will stretch early into the New Year.

Although the Proteas soundly beat the vis­it­ors on the day, England proved they will still be a force to be reckoned with in the ODI’s when they defeated a full strength South African A side by four wick­ets in a 50-over match in Potchefstroom yesterday.

England notched up 281/6 in reply to their opponent’s total of 279/9 with Jonathan Trott’s 78 the top score for the vis­it­ors. Trott was well sup­por­ted by cap­tain Andrew Strauss (65) and Matt Prior (54) in an impress­ive bat­ting dis­play by England. It was just the type of per­form­ance Strauss was look­ing for from his bats­men after their poor per­form­ance on Sunday, and it will undoubtedly stand them in good stead for Friday’s match against the Proteas.

Toothless Bafana draw again
Bafana Bafana (pic­tured) ended 2009 on a tepid note when they were held to a 0–0 draw by a make shift Jamaica in their final friendly of the year at a chilly Free State Stadium in Bloemfontein last night. It was a sub-par per­form­ance by Bafana who must have been con­fid­ent of a win after demon­strat­ing plenty of fight­ing spirit when they were held to another goal­less draw by highly rated Japan in Port Elizabeth over the weekend.

Bafana coach Carlos Alberto Parreira will no doubt be con­cerned at his team’s inab­il­ity to score goals and must be won­der­ing what he needs to do to spark his play­ers into action. Bafana clearly lacked enthu­si­asm and pas­sion on the night and seemed to just be going through the motions for large peri­ods of the match.

The South African team have not scored a goal since September when they recor­ded a 1–0 vic­tory over lowly Madagascar in a friendly played in Kimberley. With the 2010 World Cup just seven months away, Parreira clearly has his work cut out for him if he hopes to get Bafana any­where near ready to take on the world’s best teams.

Bafana were far too cas­ual against Jamaica and kept play­ing the ball side­ways and back­wards rather than mov­ing for­ward and gain­ing momentum. They also dis­played a tend­ency to show off too much by con­tinu­ing to dribble the ball much longer than was neces­sary, and as a res­ult, they got nowhere in the open­ing half against their lightly regarded opponents.

Despite enjoy­ing ter­rit­orial advant­age, Bafana were just as inef­fect­ive in the second half as they failed to breach their oppon­ents defence, although they did come close to open­ing their account in the 67^th minute when Kagisho Dikgacoi fired a shot just cen­ti­metres over the Jamaican cross­bar. However, the match even­tu­ally fizzled out into a draw leav­ing Bafana’s loyal fans dis­ap­poin­ted and Parreira with a moun­tain to climb.

United keep march­ing on
SuperSport United (pic­tured) con­tin­ued their recent good run of form in the Premier Soccer league (PSL) with a 1–1 draw against Platinum Stars on Wednesday, November 4 and an easy 4–2 win over Amazulu on Saturday, November 7. United cur­rently top the table with 30 points, closely fol­lowed by Ajax Cape Town and Santos on 28 and 27 points respect­ively. Their next oppon­ents will be 12^th placed Maritzburg United who have been in ter­rible form of late and should provide little opposition.

The game kicks off on Saturday at the Super Stadium at 3.30pm. The pick of this weekend’s games is likely to be the clash between Ajax and fourth placed Orlando Pirates, which gets under­way at 8.15pm at the Orlando Stadium on Saturday.

Results (from left to right)
Wed, 4 November
Free State Stars 1 — AmaZulu 0
Golden Arrows 1 — Bloem Celtic 1
Jomo Cosmos 0 — Ajax Cape Town 1
Santos 0 — Bidvest Wits 0
Black Aces 3 — Kaizer Chiefs 3
Moroka Swallows 0 — Mamelodi Sundowns 1
SuperSport United 1 — Platinum Stars 1
Orlando Pirates 1 — Maritzburg Utd 1

Saturday, 7 November
Golden Arrows 1 — Mamelodi Sundowns 0
Platinum Stars 3 — Bidvest Wits 1
SuperSport United 4 — AmaZulu 2
Santos 4 — Maritzburg Utd 0
Jomo Cosmos 1 — Moroka Swallows 2
Free State Stars 0 — Kaizer Chiefs 1

Sunday, 8 November
Orlando Pirates 3 — Bloem Celtic 1
Black Aces 1 — Ajax Cape Town 2

Fixtures
Friday
Bidvest Wits vs AmaZulu — Bidvest Stadium 8pm
Santos vs Kaizer Chiefs — Coetzenburg Stadium 8pm

Saturday
Platinum Stars vs Jomo Cosmos — Royal Bafokeng Stadium 3.30pm
SuperSport United vs Pmb United — Super Stadium 3.30pm
Golden Arrows vs Moroka Swallows — Chatsworth Stadium 8.15pm
Orlando Pirates vs Ajax Cape Town — Orlando Stadium 8.15pm

Sunday
Free State Stars vs Bloem Celtic — Charles Mopeli Stadium 3.30pm
Black Aces vs Mamelodi Sundowns — Puma Rugby Stadium 3.30pm

Two draws and a win in SuperSport Series
Three SuperSport series matches were decided over the week­end and the only team who came away with a win were the Nashua Titans (pic­tured) who thumped the Highveld Warriors by 10 wick­ets at St George’s Park in Port Elizabeth.

Scores in brief
Nashua Titans vs Chevrolet Warriors
Titans: 403 and 41/0
Warriors: 214 and 227
Result: Titans won by 10 wick­ets.
Venue: St George’s Park in Port Elizabeth.

Diamond Eagles vs Nashua Dolphins
Eagles: 178 and 203/3
Dolphins: 375
Result: Match drawn
Venue: City Oval, Pietermaritzburg

Cape Cobras vs Highveld Lions
Cobras: 332 and 135/7
Lions: 416 and 194/2 declared
Result: Match drawn
Venue: Newlands in Cape Town

The weekend’s res­ults have left the Titans at the top the log on 48.90 points with the Warriors a dis­tant second (33.84) and the Lions third (29.48). The Eagles (28.04), the Dolphins (25.56) and the Cobras (17) find them­selves in fourth, fifth and sixth places respect­ively with most teams, with the excep­tion of the Eagles and the Cobras, hav­ing played four games. The next set of fix­tures pits the Dolphins against the Cobras in Kingsmead in Durban and the Warriors against the Eagles at Buffalo Park in East London. Both games begin on Thursday.

Fiery France too hot for Boks
A highly motiv­ated France defeated the Springboks 20–13 in wet and windy con­di­tions at the Municipal Stadium in Toulouse on Friday night. The Boks, who dis­pensed with the British and Irish Lions in their three match series before win­ning their third Tri-Nations title earlier in the year, were a shadow of the side that swept all before them from June through to September.

Although the Boks took a 13–3 lead after 30 minutes, they were out­played in every facet of the game and con­ceded 17 points without reply in the remainder of the match. With the excep­tion of some solid per­form­ances from Heinrich Brüssow, Victor Matfield, Andries Bekker (pic­tured left) and Fourie du Preez, it was a sorry night for most of the Boks individually.

The match was an extremely phys­ical encounter with the Boks tak­ing the French head on. Both Bakkies Botha and Matfield were forced off the field at vari­ous stages of the first half due to blood seep­ing from cuts to their faces, and the French were clearly rel­ish­ing in the pun­ish­ment they were dish­ing out to the shell-shocked Boks.

Scrumhalf Julien Dupuy opened the scor­ing with a pen­alty to put France 3–0 up after five minutes, only for Bok fly­half Morné Steyn to level mat­ters after 20 minutes with a pen­alty. He then added a drop-goal five minutes later to give the Boks the lead once again. And that lead was exten­ded when cap­tain John Smit crashed over the line, after a sloppy lin­eout by the French.

But it was all down­hill from there for the Boks as the French brushed off some feeble tackles, cul­min­at­ing in wing Vincent Clerc scor­ing in the right hand corner. Even though Dupuy missed the con­ver­sion attempt and a pen­alty kick a few minutes later, the writ­ing was on the wall for the Boks when Steyn was yel­low carded in final minute of the first half after flick­ing out a boot to halt a Frenchman as the home side went on the offens­ive. Dupuy made no mis­take with the pen­alty, which reduced the defi­cit to 13–11 at halftime.

The second half belonged to the French as the Springbok prob­lems were com­poun­ded by the injury that forced Schalk Burger to leave the field. Danie Rossouw just didn’t make the grade as a replace­ment and from that moment onwards the Boks began to look ter­ribly dis­or­gan­ised. Dupuy put the French four points ahead with 12 minutes to go with a pen­alty and Morgan Parra suc­ceed with another three-pointer a few minutes later to seal a great win for the home side.

It has been a very dis­ap­point­ing start to the Boks’ five-match end of the year tour of Europe fol­low­ing their 22–17 loss to British club side Leicester Tigers in their open­ing match last Tuesday and last nights 24–23 defeat against Saracens, another British club side. One hopes that the men in green and gold can get their act together before their encounter against Italy at the Stadio Friuli, in Udine, Italy on Saturday.

Scorers
France vs South Africa
France 20 – Try: Vincent Clerc. Penalties: Julien Dupuy (4) and Morgan Parra.
South Africa 13 – Try: John Smit. Penalty: Morné Steyn. Conversion: Steyn. Drop-goal: Steyn.

Saracens vs South Africa
Saracens 24 – Tries: Ernst Joubert, Brad Barritt. Penalties: Derick Hougaard (3). Conversion: Hougaard. Drop-goal: Hougaard.
Springboks 23 – Tries: Juan de Jongh, Jongi Nokwe (2). Penalties: Ruan Pienaar (2). Conversion: Pienaar.

Van der Burgh rewrites record books again
Cameron van der Burgh (pic­tured) notched up his second breast­stroke world record within a day, and together with a world best from Darian Townsend and a meet record from Roland Schoeman, led the South African charge for glory in the final ses­sion of the FINA/Arena Swimming World Cup in Berlin, Germany, on Sunday.

Fresh from hav­ing improved his 50m-breaststroke world mark to 25.25 secs the pre­vi­ous even­ing, the power­fully built Van der Burgh recor­ded 55.61 in the 100m-breaststroke to dip under his world best of 55.99 set at the Telkom SA Short Course Championships in Pietermaritzburg earlier this year. Another South African, Neil Versfeld, claimed the bronze medal in 57.06.

Townsend con­tin­ued his excel­lent form in the World Cup short course series by estab­lish­ing a world record of 1 min, 51.55 secs in the 200m indi­vidual med­ley. Townsend’s vic­tory res­ul­ted in American stal­wart Michael Phelps hav­ing to settle for the sil­ver medal (1:53.70) with Durban-based Chad le Clos secur­ing bronze in 1:54.28.

Schoeman, the world record-holder in the 50m-freestyle set at this year’s Telkom SA Short Course Championships, was in superb form in the short sprint, clock­ing 20.57 for a meet record. Gerhard Zandberg’s vic­tory in the 50m-backstroke in an African record time of 22.85 was another spe­cial moment for the South African con­tin­gent, as he beat off a determ­ined chal­lenge from American world record-holder Peter Marshall, who fin­ished second in 22.86.

In the 200m-freestyle final, Townsend came third in an African record time of 1:40.89, while Mandy Loots (sil­ver in the 200m-butterfly) and Chanelle van Wyk (bronze in the 100m-backstroke) also notched up African records. Russian Arkady Vyatchanin broke George du Rand’s world record in the 200m-backstroke, clock­ing 1:46.11. Du Rand, whose world best had stood at 1:47.08, came second in 1:48.05. Garth Tune ended up sev­enth in the 100m-butterfly in 50.62, while Kathryn Meaklim fin­ished ninth in the 400m-individual med­ley in a cred­ible 4:39.21.

Ndou keeps title against gutsy Hatton
South African born Lovemore ‘The Black Panther’ Ndou (pic­tured right) suc­cess­fully defen­ded his International Boxing Organisation (IBO) wel­ter­weight title against Matthew ‘Magic’ Hatton (37–4-2, 14 KO’s) in Stoke, England on Friday night.

The 38-year-old Ndou (47–11-2, 31 KO’s), a 16-year vet­eran of the pro­fes­sional ring and who has been based in Australia for the past 13 years, did just enough to earn a draw against the determ­ined, but light hit­ting Hatton in a very close fight. Judge John Coyle awar­ded the con­test to the 28-year-old Hatton by a score of 115–114, while judge Steve Marshall saw it 115–114 for Ndou. However, judge Tom Miller couldn’t decide on a win­ner and handed in a card of 114–114, which enabled Ndou to keep his title.

Hatton was furi­ous with the decision and clearly thought he won. He was undoubtedly the busier of the two fight­ers, but most of his punches were blocked or avoided by the wily Ndou, who was never hurt by his oppon­ent at any stage dur­ing the 12 round bout. Hatton, on the other hand, was stunned by his much older oppon­ent on sev­eral occa­sions, but Ndou lacked the energy to fin­ish off his cour­ageous oppon­ent, who kept throw­ing punches right up until the final bell.

The win kept Ndou’s career alive and put him in line for big money fights against the likes of former light-welterweight and wel­ter­weight world cham­pion Ricky Hatton (older brother of Matthew) or cur­rent International Boxing Federation (IBF) wel­ter­weight cham­pion Isaac Hlatshwayo of South Africa.

Van Heerden and Malinga win eas­ily
It was all smiles for South African wel­ter­weight cham­pion Chris van Heerden in Meyerton on Friday night when he made short work of Tanzanian import Venance Mponji, record­ing an easy first round knockout.

Mponji came out swinging at the bell, but was unable to pen­et­rate Van Heerden’s tight defence. Fighting off the back foot, the South African calmly absorbed his oppon­ents punches before rip­ping in a short right hook to the body, which caused the Tanzanian to topple on to his back where he was coun­ted out by ref­eree Alfred Buqwana just 1 min, 42 secs into the bout. The win upped the 22-year-old Van Heerden’s record to 14–0-1 with nine wins via the short route, while the 25-year-old Mponji dropped to 15–13-2 with seven stoppages.

Undercard res­ults
Mxolisi Mbewu TKO 1 Vincent Gabela (ban­tam­weights)
Bongo Lepembohuges TKO 2 Lukas Moketi (junior wel­ter­weights)
Takalani Kwinda tech­nical decision (TD) Patrick Masango (featherweights)

Meanwhile, Samuel Malinga (pic­tured left) recor­ded a fifth round TKO over Pius Dipheko to claim the World Boxing Organisation (WBO) Africa interim junior wel­ter­weight title at the Wembley Indoor Arena in Johannesburg on Saturday night. The former World Boxing Foundation (WBF) and South African junior wel­ter­weight cham­pion gradu­ally wore down the game Dipheko, who was knocked down for a count of nine in the fifth round.

The bout con­tin­ued for a few more seconds, but ref­eree Jaap van Nieuwenhuizen decided to call a halt to pro­ceed­ings at 1:04 of the round to save Dipheko from fur­ther pun­ish­ment. The win improved Malinga’s record to 22–6-2, with 13 wins inside the dis­tance, while Dipheko dropped to 8–8-5 with two wins via the short route.

Undercard res­ults
Buli Muravha W6 Wiseman Dlomo (heavy­weights)
Godfrey Nzimande TKO 2 Stanford Mabasa (junior light­weights)
Jerry Nekhubve W6 Amon Baloyi (welterweights)

In upcom­ing war­fare, Moruti Mthalane (23–2, 16 KO’s) will take on Mexican Julio Miranda (30–4-1, 23 KO’s) for the vacant International Boxing Federation (IBF) fly­weight title at the Wembley Indoor Arena in Johannesburg on Friday night. This 27-year-old South African will be hop­ing to pull off an upset against the more fan­cied Mexican, who has won 22 of his last 23 fights, 19 of them by knockout.

Otto pips Moore in tense fin­ish
Hennie Otto (pic­tured) nar­rowly defeated Titch Moore in a sudden-death play­off to win the 72-hole, R1 mil­lion MTC Namibia PGA Championship, which fin­ished at the 6 113m, par-72 Rossmund Golf Course on Sunday. Both play­ers were tied on eight-under 280 after Otto shot a six-under 66 and Moore a three-under 69 in the final round.

Otto had a chance to clinch the title in reg­u­la­tion play when he reached the 18^th at nine-under, but his drive landed among a group of palm trees in the desert rough to the left of the fair­way. He was only able to get into the middle of the fair­way, and left his approach well short of the green. The res­ult­ing bogey saw Otto slide into a share of the lead until Moore slot­ted a birdie on 17 to edge in front by a single stroke.

However, Moore also had trouble hit­ting the fair­way on the 18^th, and pulled his drive to the right. He was only able to advance his ball onto the fair­way, and was unable to get up and down as Otto was on the driv­ing range pre­par­ing for the playoff.

It looked as if Moore’s drive down the middle had gained him the advant­age, espe­cially after Otto’s approach missed the green rather badly to the right. However, Moore had also pulled his approach to the right and Otto played an excel­lent chip to leave him­self a tap-in for par.

Moore, on the other hand, missed his 18-inch putt for par to give Otto his eighth Sunshine Tour title. The vic­tory vaul­ted Otto to 37^th on the Order of Merit with the luc­rat­ive sum­mer events of the Sunshine Tour now just around the corner.

Top 10 fin­ish­ers (South African unless stated)
280 — Hennie Otto 72 70 72 66 (won on first hole of play­off)
280 — Titch Moore 75 66 70 69
282 — Brandon Pieters 70 76 68 68, Adilson da Silva (BRA) 70 70 71 71, Tjaart van der Walt 70 71 70 71
283 — Christiaan Basson 73 68 73 69, Vaughn Groenewald 70 71 72 70, Tyrone Mordt 66 70 73 74, Willie van der Merwe 68 77 64 74
284 — Bradford Vaughan 71 70 73 70

Photo Credits:
Toothless Bafana draw again — Photo – Bafana Bafana: Source – www.joburg.org.za
United keep march­ing on — Photo – SuperSport United: Source – www.supersportunited.co.za
SA open­ers put England to the sword — Photo – Graeme Smith: Source – www.abc.net.au
Two draws and a win in SuperSport Series — Photo – Nashua Titans: Source – www.flickr.com
Fiery France too hot for Boks — Photo – Andries Bekker: Source – www.guardian.co.uk
Van der Burgh rewrites record books again — Photo – Cameron van der Burgh: Source –  www.zimbio.com
Ndou keeps title against gutsy Hatton — Photo – Lovemore Ndou: Source – www.zimbio.com
Van Heerden and Malinga win eas­ily — Photo – Samuel Malinga: Source – www.namibiasport.com.na
Otto pips Moore in tense fin­ish — Photo – Hennie Otto: Source – www.daylife.com

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