South African Sports News – 27 January

Mickey calls it quits
Proteas’ coach Mickey Arthur (pic­tured) has resigned. The shock­ing news was leaked to the media on Monday and although Arthur’s resig­na­tion has still to be made offi­cial, it has been con­firmed by reli­able sources. It is believed that Arthur and Proteas’ cap­tain Graeme Smith have been at log­ger­heads for some time and the res­ult is that their rela­tion­ship has broken down completely.

The depar­ture of Arthur has come at a dif­fi­cult time for the Proteas who leave these shores on Saturday for a demand­ing tour of India, which con­sists of two tests and three one-day inter­na­tion­als (ODI’s). It has been learned that former South African pace bowler Corrie van Zyl is likely to be appoin­ted as care­taker coach for the tour of India.

The 48-year-old Van Zyl has pre­vi­ously worked as the Proteas’ assist­ant coach and was appoin­ted as coach of Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) high per­form­ance centre in Pretoria in 2009.  It is believed that Arthur’s right-hand man at the Proteas, Vincent Barnes, has also been given the boot. Mike Procter and his panel of national select­ors may also soon be shown the door in a shake up that is likely to send shock­waves through the South African crick­et­ing ranks for some time to come.

Besides Van Zyl, former South African cap­tain Kepler Wessels and former England one-day player Jeremy Snape have also been men­tioned as pos­sible suc­cessors to Arthur. Snape, a qual­i­fied psy­cho­lo­gist, joined the Proteas as a con­sult­ant in 2008 and is a per­sonal friend of Smith, with whom he is also asso­ci­ated at the Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League (IPL). It is believed that Arthur met with CSA CEO Gerald Majola on Monday to dis­cuss his sev­er­ance pack­age. Arthur, Majola, Barnes and Van Zyl did not want to make any com­ments to the media. An offi­cial press con­fer­ence will be held in East London today.

The 41-year-old Arthur and CSA man­age­ment held an emer­gency meet­ing in Johannesburg last Tuesday to dis­cuss the team’s struggles in the recent test series against England, which ended in a 1–1 dead­lock. The Proteas won their first series in England in over 40 years and recor­ded a first series vic­tory in Australia under Arthur’s guid­ance after he replaced Ray Jennings as coach in 2005. However, they lost a home series against the Australians not long after their ground­break­ing vic­tory against the same oppon­ents and pro­duced a sub-par per­form­ance in the Twenty20 World Championship and Champions Trophy series last year.

Although many pun­dits are not con­vinced that Arthur is to blame for the Proteas’ recent slump in form it’s clear that some­thing had to be done to rem­edy the situ­ation, but it seems as though Majola and his min­ions are hit­ting the panic but­tons by intro­du­cing sweep­ing changes through­out the South African crick­et­ing set-up. Whether or not these changes will have the desired effect on the Proteas’ on field per­form­ances remains to be seen, but there is little doubt that future devel­op­ments will make for some inter­est­ing reading.

Upbeat Bafana ready to take on Zim
Head coach Carlos Alberto Parreira seems to have breathed new life into Bafana Bafana. The 66-year-old Brazilian has put his squad through some rig­or­ous train­ing in Durban over the past two weeks, but they seem to have rel­ished the chal­lenge and have put in some hard work, which has already begun to bear good fruit.

Parreira appears to have stopped Bafana from slid­ing into the abyss after a slew of poor res­ults under former coach Joel Santana. However, the cool and cal­cu­lat­ing Parreira is the first to admit that he has much more to do to whip Bafana into shape ahead of their 2010 World Cup clash against Mexico on June 11.

Bafana dis­played an urgency not seen under Santana’s ‘tutor­ship’ when they crushed min­nows Swaziland 6–2 in a train­ing match at the Chatsworth Stadium on Saturday. This con­vin­cing vic­tory has set the stage for what is likely to be an excit­ing south­ern African derby against Zimbabwe in Durban tonight.

Zimbabwe have some qual­ity play­ers to provide a ser­i­ous test for Bafana with their tire­less mid­fielder Tinashe Nengomasha, who plays for Kaizer Chiefs in the Premier Soccer League (PSL), likely to be a major threat to the South Africans. Zimbabwe also have Chiefs striker Knowledge Musona, Sundowns mid­fielder Esrom Nyandoro and Platinum Stars goal­keeper Tapuwa Kapini in their line-up so Bafana will have to be at their very best in order to come away with a win.

Parreira expressed his sat­is­fac­tion with the pro­gress made in Durban: “We will con­tinue to play our brand of soc­cer – which is keep­ing pos­ses­sion and hit­ting Zimbabwe on the counter attack.  It worked well against Swaziland and we will keep work­ing to try and become bet­ter and cut out the mistakes.”

Despite their run­away vic­tory over the week­end, Bafana still leaked two goals and it is this that Parreira alluded to when he spoke of “mis­takes”. However, defensive-lapses aside, Parreira has man­aged to install con­fid­ence in his squad, and the fact that Bafana were able to find the back of the net on no less than six occa­sions is a test­a­ment to their pro­gress. Parreira has also brought back com­pet­i­tion for places in the squad whereas Santana stuck with the same play­ers leav­ing many of them in a com­fort zone.

The Bafana coach said he would not make many changes to the side that star­ted against Swaziland for today’s game, but Mamelodi Sundowns winger Franklin Cale (pic­tured) could well be fielded from the get go rather than com­ing on at a later stage. Cale scored two bril­liant goals when he took the field at the begin­ning of the second half against Swaziland and was in sub­lime form.

Orlando Pirates striker Gert Schalkwyk, who also notched up a brace in the first half, deserves his place against Zimbabwe. His part­ner­ship with Orlando Pirates team­mate, mid­fielder Teko Modise, was a rev­el­a­tion and should be encour­aged to develop for the South Africans. Kick-off at the Moses Mabhida Stadium is at 8.30pm.

Dolphins shock Titans to reach final
For the second week run­ning, the Nashua Dolphins got the bet­ter of the Nashua Titans and their 15 run vic­tory at SuperSport Park in Centurion on Sunday enabled the KwaZulu-Natalians to book them­selves a place in Friday’s MTN40 final.

Batting first the Dolphins notched up an impress­ive 251/6 of their allot­ted 40 overs with the top three of Loots Bosman (42 off 49 balls), Hashim Amla (59 off 58 deliv­er­ies) and brother Ahmed Amla (54 off 54 balls) all weigh­ing in with use­ful con­tri­bu­tions to set the plat­form for the Dolphins’ innings.

Hashim (pic­tured) was in par­tic­u­larly good form and played some attract­ive strokes in his innings, pos­sibly send­ing a mes­sage to the national select­ors that they could well have erred by leav­ing him out of the One Day International (ODI) squad for the upcom­ing tour of India. The Dolphins middle order kept the score­board tick­ing before Johann Louw (26 not off 13 deliv­er­ies) and Pierre de Bruyn (11 not out off seven balls) scored 28 runs off the last 14 deliv­er­ies to take the KwaZulu-Natalians through to their for­mid­able total.

Morne Morkel (1/46 off eight overs), Ethy Mbhalati (2/51 off eight overs), Roelof van der Merwe (1/58 off eight overs) and Pierre Joubert (1/33 off seven overs) all got wick­ets, but, with the excep­tion of Joubert, were a tad expens­ive. The end res­ult was that the Titans had to chase 252 for vic­tory at a rate of 6.3 to the over, which was never going to be easy against an attack as var­ied as that of the Dolphins.

The Titans made a dis­astrous start to their innings, los­ing opener Gulam Bodi for nought and num­ber three Jacques Rudolph for seven to leave them on a pre­cari­ous 22/2 after 4.3 overs. Heino Kuhn and AB de Villiers set about repair­ing the dam­age with a stand of 48 for the third wicket before Kuhn was caught and bowled by Daryn Smit for 28 to leave the Titans on 70/3. De Villiers was then joined at the crease by Faf du Plessis and the pair looked like tak­ing the Titans to vic­tory with both bats­men cart­ing the Dolphins’ bowl­ers all over the park.

However, fate inter­vened on behalf of the vis­it­ors when De Villiers was unluck­ily run out for a well-played 61 off 66 balls after Du Plessis had slipped at the crease while turn­ing for a second run. Smit then removed Farhaan Behardien for two her­ald­ing the arrival of the dan­ger­ous Albie Morkel to the crease. The left-handed Proteas bats­men teamed up with Du Plessis and the duo added a fur­ther 13 runs to the total before Du Plessis was caught in the cov­ers by Andrew Hall off the bowl­ing of Kyle Abbott for 51. With De Villiers and Du Plessis now in the pavil­ion the pres­sure was mount­ing on the home side and Morkel and new man at the crease Joubert respon­ded pos­it­ively with some lusty blows to keep the Titans in the hunt.

However, things turned sour once again for the Pretoria fran­chise when Morkel (26 off 27 deliv­er­ies) was bril­liantly caught on the bound­ary by a diving David Miller leav­ing Joubert and the remain­ing bats­men with too much to do.
In the end, the Titans fell 15 runs short of their tar­get with Joubert full value for his 38 off 37 balls. Louw (2/39 off eight overs), Abbott (1/40 off eight overs), Hall (1/55 off eight overs), Smit (2/35 off seven overs) and Alfonso Thomas (1/60 off eight overs) all got amongst the wick­ets, but it was Louw and Smit in par­tic­u­lar who stood out.

It was a bit­terly dis­ap­point­ing defeat for the Titans who topped the log and looked a sure bet for the cham­pi­on­ship, only to be out­played by a motiv­ated Dolphins out­fit when it coun­ted most. The Dolphins will now play the Chevrolet Warriors in the final on Friday at Buffalo Park in East London. It should be an abso­lute cracker and the crowd can expect a tense struggle between these two well-matched teams.

Scores in brief
Dolphins: 251/6
Cobras: 236/9
Result: Dolphins won by 15 runs

Rusty ruins Cobras’ party
The Chevrolet Warriors proved more than a hand­ful for the more fan­cied Cape Cobras when they defeated them by nine runs in their MTN40 semi-final clash at Boland Bank Park in Paarl on Friday. Batting first the Warriors amassed an intim­id­at­ing 274/4 off their allot­ted 40 overs with open­ing bats­man Justin Kreusch (60 off 59 deliv­er­ies) and Ashwell Prince (48 off 48 balls) get­ting the vis­it­ors off to a rol­lick­ing start. The duo put on 104 for the first wicket before Prince was caught at long off after try­ing to hit off-spinner JP Duminy out of the ground.

Kreusch was then joined by Colin Ingram and the pair added a fur­ther 21 runs before the opener was run out by at the keeper’s end after a superb throw from Herschelle Gibbs at short cover. However, Kreusch’s demise her­al­ded the arrival of Proteas stal­wart Jacques Kallis to the crease and the bat­ting maes­tro wasted little time in put­ting the Cobras to the sword. Kallis hammered the Cobras attack to all corners of the park on his way to amass­ing an unbeaten 73 off just 55 balls as the Warriors smashed 67 runs off the last five overs of their innings.

The 34-year-old Kallis struck six fours and two sixes in his innings and together with Davey Jacobs (47 not out off 34 deliv­er­ies) put on 111 for the fifth wicket to take the Warriors to their impress­ive total. The Cobras had looked like bowl­ing them­selves back into the match when Ingram (35 off 42 balls) and Mark Boucher (three off four deliv­er­ies) fell in quick suc­ces­sion, but Kallis and Jacobs’ mag­ni­fi­cent efforts enabled the Warriors to attain a for­mid­able total.

Chasing 266 for vic­tory from the get go at an ask­ing rate of 6.65 to the over was always going to be a tough task for the Cobras, and in the end it proved to much for the Cape fran­chise. Speedster Rusty Theron (pic­tured left) was the des­troyer in chief for the Warriors with 4/48 off eight overs with Lonwabe Tsotobe (1/35 off six overs) and Wayne Parnell (1/43 off eight overs) provid­ing valu­able sup­port. Justin Kemp (71 off 55 deliv­er­ies) bat­ted well for the Cobras and kept their vic­tory hopes alive, but when he was trapped leg-before by Theron with the total on 220/5, the Cobras were always going to struggle. The flame-haired Theron then removed Rory Kleinveldt (nought off three balls) and Justin Ontong (24 off 25 deliv­er­ies) to con­clude his four-wicket haul.

Vernon Philander, bat­ting at num­ber nine, tried vali­antly to win the match for the home side with an unbeaten 23 off 14 balls but the Warriors’ bowl­ers kept their com­pos­ure under pres­sure to ensure a well-deserved vic­tory.
It was a very dis­ap­point­ing end to what had been an excel­lent sea­son for the Cobras who fin­ished second on the log only to fail in the semi-finals against their less fan­cied opponents.

Scores in brief
Warriors: 274/4
Cobras: 265/8
Result: Warriors won by nine runs.

Mchunu demol­ishes Groenewald to retain title
South African cruis­er­weight cham­pion Thabiso ‘The Rock’ Mchunu (pic­tured) suc­cess­fully defen­ded his title in the Bloemfontein City Hall on Friday night with a fourth TKO vic­tory over vet­eran cam­paigner Ruben Groenewald.

The 32-year-old Groenewald, who tipped the scales at a some­what podgy 89.96kg, obvi­ously hadn’t pre­pared for a long fight and came out swinging in the open­ing round, clearly intent on scor­ing a quick knock­out with his dan­ger­ous left hook. Mchunu, in stark con­trast, weighed in at a chis­elled 90.36kg and util­ised his quick reflexes and tight defence to per­fec­tion, as Groenewald was unable to land any mean­ing­ful punches. The cham­pion also used his excel­lent jab to probe his oppon­ent for weak­nesses and spent the rest of the round siz­ing up the challenger.

Things become very unpleas­ant for the Brakpan res­id­ent in the next round when Mchunu, obvi­ously encour­aged by his new found assur­ance that his foe posed no threat to him, star­ted to unleash an array of hurt­ful punches that reddened Groenwald’s face. The cham­pion really turned up the heat in round three by land­ing some blis­ter­ing com­bin­a­tions that stunned the chal­lenger, for­cing him to back peddle towards the ropes. One three-punch (jab-cross-hook) com­bin­a­tion was par­tic­u­larly impress­ive and had Groenwald reel­ing from its effects.

Mchunu picked up right where he had left off in round four by fir­ing off fear­some com­bin­a­tions that Groenewald simply had no answer for. Although the chal­lenger was yet to take a count he was tak­ing a bad beat­ing, and it there­fore came as no sur­prise when ref­eree Jaap Van Niewenhuizen called a halt to pro­ceed­ings at 1:31 of the round to save the hap­less chal­lenger from fur­ther punishment.

It was a very impress­ive per­form­ance by the young south­paw from KwaZulu-Natal, who, at just 21 years of age, demon­strated a matur­ity that far exceeds his fledgling years. Mchunu’s punches were fast, accur­ate and dam­aging and there is little doubt that he can go all the way to the top of the sport if he is man­aged cor­rectly. The cham­pion, who also holds the lightly regarded World Boxing Association (WBA) Pan African Cruiserweight belt, improved his record to 7–0 (6 KO’s) with the win while Groenewald fell to 23–8-3 (10 KO’s) and looks like he has nowhere to go but down from here on.

Mchunu stated in the post fight tele­vi­sion inter­view that he is: “fin­ished with fight­ing local oppos­i­tion” and wants to now “take on inter­na­tional box­ers”. Indeed, that is pre­cisely what is required for his career to carry on in the right dir­ec­tion. Boxing fans and scribes alike will be hop­ing that Mchunu can sign up with a pro­moter who can get him inter­na­tional fights; oth­er­wise his career is likely to stall and even­tu­ally fizzle out. And that, ladies and gen­tle­man, would be a trav­esty of justice as Mchunu is undoubtedly one of South Africa’s most gif­ted young boxers.

Undercard res­ults
Gideon Buthelezi TKO 4 Nelson Mtshali (mini-flyweights)
Michael Ramabeletsa TKO 4 Zukile Toko (bantamweights)

Birkett and Graham are Dusi kings
Andrew Birkett and former pupil Jason Graham (both pic­tured) cap­itil­ised on the mis­for­tune suffered by defend­ing cham­pi­ons Ant Stott and Michael Mbanjwa on the final day of the Dusi Canoe Marathon, to take race hon­urs in 7 hrs, 42 min and 4 secs. The duo won by more than three minutes as pre-race favour­ites Stott and Mbanjwa had to make do with second.

At one stage Stott and Mbanjwa enjoyed a 90 second advant­age over Birkett and Graham, but their hopes of sta­ging a suc­cess­ful defence of their title were dealt a mor­tal blow when their boat over­turned on some rap­ids only an hour before the fin­ish on Saturday. Birkett and Graham took full advant­age of the situ­ation to paddle well clear of their rivals and secure vic­tory. Local favour­ites Thomas Ngidi and Eric Zondi fin­ished third.

The women’s race was won by the heav­ily favoured duo of Abbey Miedema and Robyn Kime in 8:56:4. Miedema and Kime fin­ished almost 12 minutes ahead of Abby Adie and Lindi-May Harmsen with Hilary Pitchford and Jen Hodson tak­ing third a fur­ther 5:38 behind Harmsen and Pitchford. Michael Stewart and Kirsty Fox took the K2 mixed race hon­ours in 9:19:11, nar­rowly beat­ing Mark and Angelique Mulder (9:20:21) into second place.

The 31-year-old Birkett and the 19-year-old Graham’s vic­tory was a major sur­prise as Stott and Mbanjwe were heavy favour­ites to win the race after a dom­in­ant per­form­ance in last year’s race. However, Birkett and Graham had other ideas and their per­sist­ence paid off as their more illus­tri­ous rivals made a cru­cial mis­take from which they just could not recover.

Photo Credits:
Mickey calls it quits Photo – Mickey Arthur: Source – www.sportsillustrated.co.za
Upbeat Bafana ready to take on Zim Photo – Franklin Cale: Source – www.mtn8.mtnfootball.com
Dolphins shock Titans to reach final Photo – Hashim Amla: Source – www.uyirmmai.com
Rusty ruins Cobras’ party Photo – Rusty Theron: Source – www.flickr.com
Mchunu demol­ishes Groenewald to retain title Photo – Thabiso ‘The Rock’ Mchunu: Source – Guy Mortimer
Birkett and Graham are Dusi kings Photo – Andrew Birkett and Jason Graham: Source – www.timeslive.co.za

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