Proteas choke yet again and other sporting news ...

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 ...

England put the pres­sure on the South Africans from the get go with open­ers Andrew Strauss and Joe Denly scor­ing a fairly brisk 48 off the first 10 overs. However, vet­eran all rounder Jacques Kallis struck the first blow for the Proteas when he removed Denly for 21 after the opener mis­timed a pull and was caught by JP Duminy at deep square-leg. Strauss fol­lowed 11 runs later with his score on 25 after Proteas wick­et­keeper Mark Boucher pulled off an acro­batic catch behind the stumps off pace man Wayne Parnell.

However, these early suc­cesses merely sent the stage for Owais Shah and Paul Collingwood to plun­der 180 off the South African attack in a fren­zied dis­play of bat­ting which took every­one by sur­prise. Collingwood’s con­tri­bu­tion was 82 off 94 balls while Shah weighed in with a quick-fire 98 off just 89 balls to set England up for a total in excess of 300.

Eoin Morgan com­poun­ded the Proteas misery with a bru­tal 67 off just 34 deliv­er­ies, which included five glor­i­ous sixes. Morgan’s innings lif­ted England to 323, leav­ing the South Africans with the daunt­ing task of hav­ing to score at 6.48 to the over to get the win and stay in the com­pet­i­tion. The Proteas bowl­ing was dis­ap­point­ing and undoubtedly cost them the match; with only Parnell stand­ing out with his three wick­ets for 60 runs off 10 overs.

Smith (pic­tured) made a brave effort to get the runs, scor­ing a bril­liant 141 of just 134 balls, but the South African skip­per never received the sup­port he needed from his woe­ful team-mates as wick­ets tumbled at reg­u­lar inter­vals. The only other score of any worth was AB de Villiers’ 36 off 41 balls, but the tal­en­ted Proteas num­ber four needed to build a lengthy part­ner­ship with Smith if South Africa were going to get the runs, which is why is was so ter­ribly dis­ap­point­ing when De Villiers tamely sur­rendered his wicket to medium-pacer Collingwood after he mis­timed a pull and was eas­ily caught by Denly.

After the loss, the local media imme­di­ately lam­basted the Proteas with many call­ing for the head of coach Mickey Arthur, who must be bit­terly dis­ap­poin­ted as his teams early exist from yet another major ICC tour­na­ment. However, the fact of the mat­ter is that the major­ity of the team, with the excep­tion of Smith and per­haps Parnell, pro­duced some very ordin­ary cricket and have only them­selves to blame for their defeat.

At the end of the day good coach­ing isn’t worth any­thing if most of the team fails to play to their full poten­tial, which is exactly what happened on Sunday at SuperSport Park. If any­thing, some rad­ical changes need to be made to the Proteas side as some of the more senior play­ers, with again the excep­tion of Smith, are not pulling their weight. Let’s hope the South Africans get the house in order before England tour these shores on November 13.

Scoreboard
England
A Strauss c Boucher b Parnell 25
J Denly c Duminy b Kallis 21
O Shah c Boucher b Botha 98
P Collingwood b Parnell 82
E Morgan c Smith b Steyn 67
L Wright run out 8
R Bopara c Morkel b Botha 1
S Broad b Parnell 0
G Swann not out 8
J Anderson not out 2
Extras: 11
Total: 323/8 (50 overs)
Fall of wick­ets: 1–48, 2–59, 3–222, 4–262, 5–291, 6–295, 7–297, 8–320.
Bowling: Steyn 10–0-59–1, Parnell 10–2-60–3, Kallis 3–0-14–1, Morkel
6–0-45–0, Van der Merwe 9–0-67–0, Botha 9–0-56–2, Duminy 3–0-17–0.

South Africa
G Smith c Shah b Broad 141
H Gibbs c Wright b Anderson 22
J Kallis c Denly b Broad 12
AB de Villiers c Denly b Collingwood 36
JP Duminy b Swann 24
M Boucher b Anderson 8
A Morkel run out 17
J Botha c Onions b Broad 0
R van der Merwe b Anderson 0
W Parnell not out 10
D Steyn not out 17
Extras: 14
Total: 301/9 (50 overs)
Fall of wick­ets: 1–42, 2–64, 3–142, 4–206, 5–230, 6–255, 7–255, 8–263,
9–274.
Bowling: Anderson 10–0-42–3, Onions 7–0-52–0, Broad 10–0-67–3, Wright
5–0-31–0, Collingwood 10–0-58–1, Swann 8–0-43–1
Result: England won by 22 runs

Province trounce Griquas in Newlands mon­soon
Western Province remained in second pos­i­tion in this year’s Absa Premier Currie Cup com­pet­i­tion with a 43–3 drub­bing of third placed GWK Griquas at Newlands in Cape Town on Saturday after­noon. Province full­back Joe Pietersen (pic­tured) was the des­troyer in chief as he pro­duced a near fault­less per­form­ance to reap a rich har­vest of 21 points via four pen­al­ties, two con­ver­sions and a try.

The rest of Province’s points came from tries by Brok Harris, Duane Vermeulen, Frikkie Welsh and Pieter Louw and a con­ver­sion by Peter Grant. In reply, Griquas could only muster a lone pen­alty by fly­half Naas Olivier. The res­ult left the Capetonians on 44 points, one adrift of the top placed Sharks who had an uncon­vin­cing 34–20 win over the lowly Leopards at the Absa Stadium in Durban on Friday.

Province were remark­ably good against Griquas in a game played in abso­lutely appalling con­di­tions with rain buck­et­ing down in tor­rents, turn­ing the play­ing field into some­thing remin­is­cent of a swamp. The dia­mond miners were com­pletely at sea (excuse the pun) in the unfa­mil­iar con­di­tions and were never able to cope with the ele­ments and their skilled opposition.

The vis­it­ors spent the major­ity of the first half pinned in their own ter­rit­ory, con­ced­ing a host of pen­al­ties under pres­sure while cap­tain and flank Jonathan Mokuena was also yellow-carded for con­stantly infringing. The Province half back pair of Peter Grant and Dewaldt Duvenhage kept their vastly super­ior pack on the front foot with long rak­ing kicks, which piled on the pres­sure for the vis­it­ors who began too come apart at the seams.

Pieterson bagged his four pen­al­ties and scored his try in the first 40 minutes with prop Harris bar­ging his way over the line after a power­ful drive by the Province pack. Olivier kicked a pen­alty for the vis­it­ors when they man­aged to break into their oppon­ents half to force a mis­take, which yiel­ded the penalty.

Griquas did improve some­what in the second half when the rain eased up, but they could not pen­et­rate the rock solid Province defence and failed to add to their half time score. This was not the case for the home side though as they con­tin­ued to pile on the pres­sure and points, with fur­ther tries from flankers Vermeulen and Louw and util­ity back Welsh. Nineteen-year-old Australian import Matt Toomu had a hand in both Welsh’s and Louw’s tries, which must have made Province coach Allister Coetzee a very happy man.

It was an excel­lent win for Province who were super­ior and more organ­ised in every com­part­ment as the vis­it­ors failed to find their rhythm in the tricky con­di­tions. “We did well today and we must keep work­ing hard,” said Province cap­tain Luke Watson com­ment­ing on the win. Indeed, if the Capetonians are able to keep on pro­du­cing sim­ilar per­form­ances for the remainder of the sea­son, they stand an excel­lent chance of being crowned champions.

Bulls sur­vive late onslaught to thwart Cheetahs
The Free State Cheetahs staged a strong second-half fight back against the Blue Bulls at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria on Saturday, but it was not enough to stave off defeat as the home side won 30–27 after going into the break 23–10 to the good. The win meant the Bulls remain in fourth pos­i­tion on the log, with 36 points, but more import­antly the defeat has demoted the Cheetahs to sixth while the Lions, who ascen­ded to fifth after crush­ing per­en­nial punch bags the Cavaliers 88–15 in Johannesburg, are just four points adrift of the men in blue.

It was a crack­ing game without the res­ult in doubt right up until the final whistle. The home side had a great start and scored the first points of the match via a pen­alty by fly­half Morné Steyn, with livewire right wing Gerhard van den Heever put­ting the Bulls fur­ther ahead five minutes later with a fine try, which was con­ver­ted by Steyn.

The vis­it­ors replied with a 17^th minute pen­alty by fly­half Jacques-Louis Potgieter, only for the Bulls to hit back a minute later with an oppor­tun­istic try from flanker Dewald Potgieter, who charged down an attemp­ted clear­ance from his name sake. Steyn, cool as a cucum­ber, added the con­ver­sion and then slot­ted a pen­alty to stretch his side’s lead to 20–3, before the Cheetahs star­ted to launch their determ­ined comeback.

The cata­lyst was undoubtedly Cheetahs left wing Fabian Juries, who dodged and weaved his way through no less than nine Bulls defend­ers to score the best indi­vidu­al­istic try I’ve wit­nessed in years. The score was con­ver­ted by Potgieter to close the gap to just 10 points before Steyn banged over another pen­alty on the hooter to make it 23–10 in favour of the home side.

The Juries magic con­tin­ued three minutes into the second half when the mon­goose like wing scored another jewel that closed the gap to a mere six points fol­low­ing another suc­cess­ful con­ver­sion by Potgieter. However, the Bulls struck back shortly there­after with a try from centre Wynand Olivier who took a leaf out of Juries’ book to dive over near the posts for Steyn to add the conversion.

Cheetahs right wing Lionel Mapoe then got in on the action after 57 minutes when he shrugged off a couple of weak tackles to make it 30–24 in favour of the home side. Potgieter then frayed the nerves of many a Bulls sup­porter by slot­ting another pen­alty to close the gap to just three points with 20 minutes to go.

However, try as they might, the Cheetahs could not add to their score, allow­ing the Bulls to run out nar­row win­ners, much to the relief of the Loftus faith­ful and cap­tain Victor Matfield (pic­tured). “We’re very happy with the win and it’s nice for me and some of the guys (other Springboks return­ing from Tri-Nations duty) to be back and play­ing for the Bulls,” said Matfield. And believe me, the Bulls are going to need every­one of those Springboks if they hope to win the Currie Cup in what is becom­ing a very tight race for the championship.

Buccaneers held to a draw by determ­ined Wits
Absa PSL log lead­ers Orlando Pirates were unable to pull off a vic­tory against third placed Bidvest Wits at the Orlando Stadium in Johannesburg on Saturday even­ing. The Students, who were without the ser­vices of their goal­keeper Darren Keet who is play­ing for the national team at the Under-20 World Cup in Egypt, pro­duced a solid all round per­form­ance to deny The Buccaneers a vic­tory in a closely con­tested encounter.

Pirates had the bet­ter of pro­ceed­ings in the early going, but Wits made life dif­fi­cult for the home side by coun­ter­ing them at every oppor­tun­ity. However, Pirates were awar­ded a pen­alty in the 21^st minute when Wits defender Themba Shabalala brought down Teko Modise inside the box.

Lucas Thwala made no mis­take from the spot put­ting the home side 1–0 to the good, which is the way mat­ters remained until the 65^th minute when Wits striker Calvin Kadi scored his sev­enth league goal of the sea­son from close in, after a well placed cross from winger Sifiso Myeni.

The goal seemed to ener­gise the Students as they sud­denly star­ted to up the tempo of their play, even though the wet pitch wasn’t exactly con­tus­ive to fast-flowing soc­cer. However, neither team man­aged to net a win­ner leav­ing mat­ters dead­locked after 90 minutes.

Nevertheless, a draw was per­haps a fair res­ult as Pirates had the bet­ter first half while Wits were more dom­in­ant in the second stanza. The Buccaneers’ next out­ing is against 12^th placed Free State Stars at the Charles Mopeli Stadium on Saturday after­noon while Wits do battle with 15^th placed Jomo Cosmos at the Bidvest Stadium the fol­low­ing afternoon.

PSL Results (left to right)
Last Wednesday
Ajax Cape Town 1        Maritzburg Utd 1
Orlando Pirates 1            Platinum Stars 0
Bloem Celtic 1            Kaizer Chiefs 0
Mamelodi Sundowns 2         AmaZulu 0
Black Aces 1            Free State Stars 1
Moroka Swallows 0        Bidvest Wits 2
Golden Arrows 1            Santos 1

Saturday
Golden Arrows 1            Maritzburg Utd 1
Free State Stars 0        SuperSport Utd 1
Santos 2                Platinum Stars 0
Mamelodi Sundowns 1        Ajax Cape Town 2
Orlando Pirates 1            Bidvest Wits 1

Sunday
Moroka Swallows 0        Bloem Celtic 0
Jomo Cosmos 1            Kaizer Chiefs 2
Black Aces 2            AmaZulu 0

The pick of this week’s fix­tures is most likely to be Friday’s encounter between sev­enth placed Maritzburg United and ninth placed Mamelodi Sundowns. Both teams are play­ing some decent foot­ball at the moment and are fairly evenly matched, which should make for an inter­est­ing encounter at the Woodburn Stadium in Pietermaritzburg. Kickoff is at 8pm.

Fixtures
Today
Platinum Stars vs Ajax Cape Town
AmaZulu vs Golden Arrows

Friday
Maritzburg Utd vs Mamelodi Sundowns
Santos vs Black Aces

Saturday
AmaZulu vs Moroka Swallows
Free State Stars vs Orlando Pirates
Platinum Stars vs Bloem Celtic
SuperSport Utd vs Golden Arrows

Sunday
Bidvest Wits vs Jomo Cosmos
Ajax Cape Town vs Kaizer Chiefs

Meanwhile, in inter­na­tional action, The South African Under-20 team, com­monly referred to as Amajita, were held to a 2–2 draw against the United Arab Emirates in a Group F Under-20 World Cup match in Alexandria on Sunday. Two goals by striker Kermit Erasmus were can­celled out by a pen­alty from Hamdan Al Kamali and a late strike from Theyab Awana to give UAE a share of the spoils.

Takalani tames Kiko to set up double world title shot
Current World Boxing Foundation (WBF) feather­weight cham­pion Takalani ‘Panther’ Ndlovu (pic­tured left) recovered from a first round knock­down to unan­im­ously out­point Kiko Martinez (55.14kg) of Spain in an International Boxing Federation (IBF) junior feather­weight title elim­in­ator held at the Nasrec Indoor Arena in Johannesburg on Friday night.

The stocky Martinez uncorked a peach of a left hook in the open­ing stanza to send Ndlovu (55.34 kg) to the can­vas, but the South African man­aged to beat the count and box his way out of trouble. However, Martinez had gained Ndlovu’s respect with the Soweto fighter decid­ing to take the cau­tious approach and rely on his box­ing skills for a vic­tory, rather than try­ing to slug it with the dan­ger­ous Spaniard.

It worked, as Ndlovu landed the more effect­ive punches to run out a 117–111, 116–112 and 115–113 win­ner on the judges’ score­card after 12 rounds of action. However, Ndlovu could have won by stop­page had he con­tin­ued to apply the pres­sure in the 11^th round after hurt­ing Martinez with a series of sting­ing com­bin­a­tions. Thankfully for Martinez, he held back and kept his dis­tance, obvi­ously wary of expos­ing his chin to the hard punch­ing Spaniard.

It was not a great per­form­ance by Ndlovu, but it was good enough to secure him a title fight, which will prob­ably be against IBF and World Boxing Association (WBA) cham­pion Celstino Caballero of Panama in the not too dis­tant future. If that fight comes off, it will more than likely be the South African’s last chance of win­ning one of the more recog­nised world titles.

Ndlovu, a former South African and International Boxing Organisation (IBO) feather­weight cham­pion, had chal­lenged Steve Molitor for the pres­ti­gi­ous IBF junior feather­weight belt in Canada in July 2007, but lost on a ninth round TKO. Molitor’s only loss was to Caballero in November 2008. The 32-year-old Ndlovu improved to 30–5 (18KO’s) while the 23-year-old Martinez dropped to 20–3 with 15 KO’s.

On the under­card, Vusi Malinga (53.50kg) had too much fire­power for Fahili Maijia (53.14kg) of Tanzania and knocked him out in the third round to win the vacant World Boxing Organisation (WBO) Africa ban­tam­weight title. Malinga, a south­paw, found his range in the second stanza when he began to unleash bru­tal com­bin­a­tions to both body and head for­cing his smal­ler foe to back peddle.

The South African dished out more of the same treat­ment in the next round cul­min­at­ing in a trip to the can­vas for the Tanzanian after he absorbed a wicked right-left com­bin­a­tion to the body. A clearly dis­tressed Majia failed to beat ref­eree Tony Nyangiwe’s count, end­ing mat­ters at 2 min, 28 secs of the round. Malinga improved his record to 18–3-1 (11KO’s) while Maija dropped to 7–1 (3KO’s). The win hope­fully sets the South African up for another crack at a major world title after fail­ing in his first bid against the bril­liant World Boxing Council (WBC) ban­tam­weight cham­pion, Hozumi Hasegawa of Japan.

In other fights on the Branco Sports Productions bill, Warren Joubert (59.74Kg) remained unbeaten by out­box­ing the rugged Sifiso Msibi (58.66kg) over six rounds in a junior light­weight con­test, while Michael Schultz (75.98kg) knocked out Oupa Mahlangu (76.20kg) 47 secs into the second round of a super mid­dle­weight con­test sched­uled for six rounds. It was the undefeated Schultz’s first fight in 11 years.

Meanwhile, in another tour­na­ment in Johannesburg the pre­vi­ous night, Andre Kerr, under the ban­ner of Seconds Out Boxing Promotions, made his debut as a pro­moter at the Wembly Indoor Arena and put on an excel­lent show without the bene­fit of any sponsorship.

Results
Raymond Bloom TKO 1 Tholakelo Mxonywa (junior light­weights)
Sipho Taliwe TKO 3 Nicholas Modibeng (light­weights)
Nkululeko Mhlongo KO 2 Irvin Mahonisi (mid­dle­weights)
Stephen Ntshingila W6 Kyle Bothma (light­weights)
Koos Sibiya D6 Themba Lesiba (junior feather­weights)
Johnny Muller TKO 1 Sean Santana (catch­weight con­test)
Marcel Japtha KO 1 Victor Kota (featherweights)

Former three-time world cham­pion Tulane ‘Sugarboy’ Malinga was hon­oured at a tour­na­ment presen­ted by African Ring in con­junc­tion with Golden Gloves Promotions at Emperors Palace in Kempton Park last night.

Results
Hekkie Budler W12 Doctor Ntsele (junior fly­weights)
Andre Thysse KO 5 Emmanuel Duma (light heavy­weights)
Stephen Castle W4 Kally Kelembe (heavy­weights)
Papi Mongende W4 Deon Coetzee (heavy­weights)
Wesley Buys TKO 1 Simon Milne (light­weights)
Ashley Dlamini TKO 2 Shadrack Mamaila (feather­weights)
Joey Stiglingh KO 3 Solly Mokoka (junior light­weights)
David Bassajjamivule W6 Simon Mokoena (super middleweights)

In upcom­ing war­fare on Saturday, South African Evans Mbamba squares off against Mexican Tomas Rojas in Vila Cruz, Mexico, for the WBC interim junior ban­tam­weight title.

Fast and furi­ous action at Killarney meet­ing
The action was intense at the Western Cape Killarney Circuit on Saturday after­noon where the pen­ul­tim­ate round of a num­ber of local motor­s­port cham­pi­on­ships took place. Local boy Lance Isaacs (pic­tured) won both heats of the Interfile South African Motorcycle Championship on his PS Honda, edging out Greg Gildenhuys (RN Honda) and Sheridan Morais (Emtek Kawasaki) in the first race and then out­last­ing his two rivals again in the second out­ing, although the order was a little dif­fer­ent on this occa­sion with Morais get­ting the bet­ter of Gildenhuys to fin­ish second. The res­ults meant that Morais, Isaacs and Gildenhuys are locked in battle for this year’s title with one round remaining.

The Engen Volkswagen Cup title is still up for grabs with none of the com­pet­it­ors being able to build up a decis­ive points lead. Devin Roberston won the first race with team-mate Gennaro Bonafede in second place and Kosie Weyers third. Mathew Hodges tri­umphed in the second heat, just ahead of Weyers and Kieren Quarmby. The cham­pi­on­ship now goes down to the wire with just one round left.

There were plenty of twists and turns in the Bridgestone Production Car Championships with both the Class A and Class T lead­er­ships chan­ging hands. The first race of Class A was won by Shaun Watson-Smith (Engen Audi) who was closely fol­lowed by Johan Fourie (IndyOil Audi) and Watson-Smith’s team-mate Michael Stephen. Fourie won the second heat with Watson-Smith second and Stephen again find­ing him­self third. Fourie now leads the cham­pi­on­ship from Anthony Taylor (Afrox BMW 330i), Stephen and Leeroy Poulter (GP Nissan 350Z) going into the final round.

Graeme Nathan (IndyOil GTI) drove a fault­less race to lead the Class T field from start to fin­ish with Brett Roach (Old Mutual VW Polo GTI) second and Gary Formato (Nando’s Ford Focus ST) third. The second heat saw Formato take the win with team-mate Shaun Duminy second and Mark Carver (Global) round­ing off the podium pos­i­tions. Formato is now one point ahead of Nathan in the cham­pi­on­ship with just one event to go.

The first Class B race saw Kosie Swanepoel (Barnett Toyota RunX) take the win to secure the cham­pi­on­ship title. Shaun Pike (Toyota RunX) drove a defens­ive race to take second with Gary Green (Alfa Romeo) in third place. Swanepoel also won the second race from Pike after Green retired on the third lap.

There were some really dra­matic hap­pen­ings in the Wesbank V8 Championship when the Auby family’s attempt to fin­ish first, second and third in the stand­ings came to nought. All three Auby’s – father Deon and sons Marc and Brandon – failed to score a sig­ni­fic­ant points haul in either of the two races on the day. Triple cham­pion Hennie Gronewald (Holden) cap­it­al­ised on this unfor­tu­nate state of affairs to take the win in the first race and third in the second which moved him into second pos­i­tion in the cham­pi­on­ship with just one round to go.

Veteran Groenewald is now within five points of Marc Auby (ELT Jaguar) who has led the cham­pi­on­ship through­out the year. Marc and his brother Brendon both retired from the first heat with gear­box prob­lems with father Deon tak­ing over the lead only for Groenwald to power his way past the older Auby to take vic­tory. Jaco Correia (LiquiMoly Corvette) won the second heat from Neil Hawkins (Cars Unlimited Opel). The final round of all four cham­pi­on­ships takes place at Kyalami on Saturday, October 17.

The sev­enth round of the 2009 South African National Off-Road Car Racing Championship, the Toyota Dealer 400, takes place from October 2–3 and with only one round remain­ing in the cham­pi­on­ship, the action is expec­ted to be intense as the top con­tenders fight it out for top hon­ours. Watch this space to find out what happened.

Photo Credits:
Proteas choke yet again in major tour­na­ment — Photo – Graeme Smith: Source – flickr.com
Province trounce Griquas in Newlands mon­soon — Photo – Joe Pietersen: Source – clubnewlands.co.za
Bulls sur­vive late onslaught to thwart Cheetahs — Photo – Victor Matfield: Source – skysports.com
Buccaneers held to a draw by determ­ined Wits — Photo – Lucas Thwala: Source – zimbio.com
Takalani tames Kiko to set up double world title shot — Photo – Takalani Ndlovu:  Source – daylife.com
Fast and furi­ous action at Killarney meet­ing — Photo – Lance Isaacs:  Source – actionimage.co.za