South African Sports News – 6 January

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 ...

Smith, although offer­ing a num­ber of chances, bat­ted with more resi­li­ence and com­pos­ure than he has dis­played in recent innings, and the South African camp will be hop­ing that their cap­tain will go on to record a big score against the English. Earlier, Smith and Amla took the Proteas to 56/1 at the lunch break, after the South Africans got rid of the last three England bats­men in just over six overs in the morning.

With the English seven down and 50 behind overnight, the Proteas real­ised the import­ance of mop­ping up the tail quickly on the fol­low­ing morn­ing, par­tic­u­larly with the mer­cury set to rise into the high thirties on the day. Morne Morkel and Dale Steyn did not dis­ap­point their team-mates as the impos­ing Morkel removed Graeme Swann and James Anderson with suc­cess­ive balls in the open­ing over of the day.

Smith snapped up both men at first slip as they failed to ward off rising deliv­er­ies from the tower­ing speed­ster.  Matt Prior man­aged to get England to within 18 of South Africa’s first-innings score of 291 before Steyn bowled him for a well-played 76. England’s top scorer dragged an attemp­ted pull shot onto his stumps, bring­ing the innings to an end on 273. Smith and Ashwell Prince then got the Proteas off to a reas­on­able start, before the out of form opener was trapped leg before for 15 by England spin­ner Graeme Swann. Amla then joined Smith and the duo quickly set about build­ing a plat­form for their team to win the match over the remain­ing two days.

South Africa are 1–0 down in the four match series after draw­ing the open­ing test at SuperSport Park in Centurion and then suf­fer­ing a humi­li­at­ing defeat by an innings and 98 runs in the second test at Kingsmead in Durban. Although many play­ers under per­formed in the Durban test, fast bowler Makhaya Ntini was singled out as the main cul­prit for the loss and was promptly dropped from the team for the Newlands test. The 32-year-old pace­man was replaced by Friedal de Wet who made a suc­cess­ful debut in the Centurion test before mak­ing way for the return­ing Steyn in Durban. The fourth and final test takes place at the Wanderers in Johannesburg on January 14.

Birds run Bundesliga cham­pi­ons close
Moroka Swallows can still lift their heads up high des­pite los­ing 2–1 to Bundesliga cham­pi­ons VfL Wolfsburg in their Volkswagen Challenge Trophy match played at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Stadium on Monday night. Their more skil­ful oppon­ents out­played the Birds, who are striv­ing to fin­ish in the Premier Soccer League’s top eight this sea­son, dur­ing the open­ing 30 minutes.

However, Swallows respon­ded well to the pres­sure and were back in the match when their cap­tain Lefa Tsutsulupa (pic­tured right) made it 2–1 from close range.  Wolfsburg star­ted off strongly and went ahead as early as the eighth minute when defender Sascha Riether scored from inside the pen­alty area. The Bundesliga out­fit went 2–0 up after 17 minutes when their star striker, Edin Dzeko, cap­it­al­ised on a defens­ive blun­der by Ashraf Hendricks, which opened the way for the eagle eyed Bosnian inter­na­tional to steer the ball home.
Wolfsburg seemed to relax after Dzeko’s goal and Swallows took advant­age of their com­pla­cency to get back into the game.

After threat­en­ing their oppon­ents goal on numer­ous occa­sions, the Birds even­tu­ally opened their account when Tsutsulupa fired home Phaladi Kobolo’s cross from inside the six yard box in the 43^rd minute. Swallows con­tin­ued their resur­gence in the second half when their teen­age striker Augustine Leonard came close to net­ting an equal­iser, only to nar­rowly miss Tsutsulupa’s free kick at the near post.

The Birds con­tin­ued to push hard for the equal­iser in the second half, but were unable to find the back of the net, although sub­sti­tute Ace Bhengu had a well aimed corner cleared off the goal line just seven minutes from time. In the end Wolfsburg’s greater exper­i­ence helped them to res­ist a strong second half chal­lenge from Swallows and run out 2–1 winners.

Big bout res­ched­uled for February
Former International Boxing Federation (IBF) and cur­rent World Boxing Foundation (WBF) heavy­weight cham­pion Francois ‘The White Buffalo’ Botha (47–4-3; 28 KO’s) will have to wait another month before swap­ping leather with American legend Evander ‘The Real Deal’ Holyfield (42–10-2; 27 KO’s).

The South African vet­eran was sched­uled to face the former undis­puted world cruis­er­weight and heavy­weight cham­pion on January 16 in Kampala, Uganda. However, the fight will now take place on February 20 to give the box­ers and organ­isers more time to pre­pare, the pro­moters said on Monday. “We have real­ised that we need more time to pub­li­cise the event region­ally and world­wide, and also to give the fight­ers ample time to pre­pare them­selves,” said Pro Box Promotions man­ager Eddie Bazira. “I assure the world that the fight will take place,” he added.

The 12 round bout, which will be for the vacant World Boxing Federation (also WBF) belt is expec­ted to draw a capa­city crowd of 80 000 spec­tat­ors. Holyfield, a former four-time world heavy­weight cham­pion who has won only five of his last 12 con­tests, has not fought since being out­poin­ted by Russian giant Nikolai Valuev a year ago in a bid for the World Boxing Association (WBA) crown.

Botha (pic­tured right) drew with Pedro Carrion of Cuba in his last bout, which was held in Germany in October.
Despite earn­ing more than R1.6 bil­lion in the ring, Holyfield has twice faced fore­clos­ure on his estate in sub­urban Atlanta over a default on a R80 mil­lion loan. Although his fin­an­cial prob­lems have since eased, Holyfield has to return to facing more cred­ible oppon­ents than Botha, who stepped back in the ring in July 2007 after a five-year lay­off. Holyfield was once at the top of the sport, but con­sec­ut­ive losses to Chris Byrd, James Toney and Larry Donald sent his career into a tailspin, and he quit the ring for 21 months before return­ing in August 2006 to begin a run of four straight wins before suf­fer­ing points defeats to Sultan Ibragimov and Valuev.

Botha briefly held the IBF title in 1995, but has since been defeated by former world cham­pi­ons Michael Moorer, ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis and Wladimir Klitschko. “I have always been my own harshest critic. My per­form­ance against Carrion, without mak­ing any excuses, was argu­ably the worst of my career,” said Botha. “Expect the fit­test, toughest and best ever, and extremely ser­i­ous, Francois Botha in Uganda in February. I owe my fans and mem­bers of Team Botha the per­form­ance of my life. I intend to make good on that,” he added.

“I am look­ing for­ward to going to Uganda and I expect a tough fight against Francois Botha,” said Holyfield. “I am going to win and I will cher­ish the WBF world title,” he added.

De Lange and du Preez bowl Eagles to vic­tory
Con de Lange (pic­tured) and Dillon du Preez each snared three wick­ets to steer the Chevrolet Diamond Eagles to a 30-run vic­tory over the Chevrolet Warriors in their MTN40 match at St George’s in Port Elizabeth on Saturday. Left-arm spin­ner De Lange boas­ted fig­ures of three for 21 off eight overs while seamer Du Preez recor­ded three for 33 off 5.2 overs as the Eagles, who amassed 221 for nine, dis­missed the home side for 191 in 37.2 overs.

On a pitch that became slower as the match pro­gressed, open­ing bats­man Justin Kreusch was the only Warriors bats­man to occupy the crease for any length of time as the right-hander notched up 82 runs off 104 balls.  Kreusch, whose innings included nine fours and a six, was the last man to fall when he was bowled by Du Preez.

The Warriors’ open­ing pair of Jon-Jon Smuts and Kreusch put on 50 runs for the first wicket before Rilee Rossouw caught Smuts at back­ward point off Du Preez. Colin Ingram (13) didn’t hang around too long as he was run out by a fine throw from De Lange at short fine leg. Things went from bad to worse for the Warriors as De Lange wrecked havoc in their middle-order to effect­ively win the game for the Eagles.

The 28-year-old spin­ner got rid of Arno Jacobs (six), Davey Jacob (three) and Johan Botha (five) as the home crashed to 99 for five before Nicky Boje (18) and Kreusch added 43 runs for the sixth wicket to sta­bil­ise the innings. However, once Du Preez bowled Boje, the Warriors’ res­ist­ance crumbled as they lost their last five wick­ets for just 49 runs.

Earlier, 24-year-old pace­man Rusty Theron tore through the Eagles’ middle-order to end the innings with career-best equalling limited-overs fig­ures of four for 33 off seven overs. Ryan Bailey top scored for the Eagles com­pil­ing a valu­able 67 off 70 balls, which lif­ted the Eagles out of the doldrums after the vis­it­ors found them­selves at a pre­cari­ous 99 for five in the 22^nd over.

On a hot and blustery after­noon the Eagles won the toss and elec­ted to bat and soon made a prom­ising start cour­tesy of a 41-run open­ing part­ner­ship from Morne van Wyk (43) and Reeza Hendricks (12). Hendricks was the first to go when he was run out by a dir­ect hit from Ingram in the cov­ers. Rossouw and Boeta Dippenaar could only muster nine runs apiece before Van Wyk, who pro­duced some spark­ling shots, became the second bats­man to be run out.

The right-hander depar­ted cour­tesy of a superb piece of field­ing from the agile Smuts at back­ward point. Smuts dived full length to his right to stop the ball before his power­ful and accur­ate throw to ‘keeper Davey Jacobs found Van Wyk short of the crease.  Dean Elgar (12) suc­cumbed to the spin of Boje before Bailey and De Lange (34) provided some sta­bil­ity with a sixth-wicket part­ner­ship that yiel­ded 71 pre­cious runs. De Lange was bowled neck and crop by Theron with Johan van der Wath (one) fol­low­ing suit shortly there­after. Theron then had Du Preez (13) caught at deep extra cover to com­plete his four-wicket haul.

Scores in brief
Eagles: 221/9
Warriors: 191
Result: Eagles won by 30 runs

Other MTN 40 res­ults
December
22: Nashua Titans beat the Eagles by four wick­ets.
23: Nashua Cape Cobras beat the bizhub Highveld Lions by four wick­ets.
26: Lions beat the Warriors by five wick­ets.
27: Cobras beat the Titans by 21 runs
30: Cobras beat the Eagles by 115 runs and the Titans beat the Warriors by two wickets.

Titans and Cobras way out in front
Despite the Diamond Eagles’ excel­lent 30 run vic­tory over the Chevrolet Warriors at St George’s Park on Saturday, the MTN40 Championship is match­ing up to be a two horse race between the Nashua Titans (pic­tured) and Nashua Cape Cobras with both teams cur­rently in fine fettle. The Titans top the log with 23 points closely fol­lowed by the Cobras who have 19 points. The remain­ing four teams, the Eagles (nine points), Warriors (eight points), Nashua Dolphins (also eight points), and bizhub Highveld Lions (four points) are way off the pace.

However, since the cham­pi­on­ship is ulti­mately decided on a knock­out basis and not on who topped the log at the end of the sea­son, all of these teams still have a chance of qual­i­fy­ing for the semi-finals and ulti­mately the final on January 29.

Upcoming fix­tures
Today
Lions vs Eagles — Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg: 4.15pm
Dolphins vs Cobras — Kingsmead, Durban: 4.15pm

Friday
Dolphins vs Lions — Kingsmead, Durban: 4.15pm
Eagles vs Cobras — Diamond Oval, Kimberley: 4.15pm
Titans vs Warriors — SuperSport Park, Centurion: 4.15pm

Sunday
Eagles vs Warriors — OUTsurance Oval, Bloemfontein: 10.00am
Titans vs Dolphins — Willowmoore Park, Benoni: 10.00am

Giniel’s title hopes under threat
Giniel de Villiers’ chances of suc­cess­fully defend­ing his Dakar Rally title were dealt a ser­i­ous blow on Monday when the South African’s Volkswagen Touareg suffered mech­an­ical prob­lems.  De Villiers (pic­tured) and crew­mate Dirk von Zitzewitz were forced to stop and wait for the sup­port truck for assist­ance after their five-cylinder diesel-powered vehicle developed engine problems.

Volkswagen main­tained its pos­i­tion in the front run­ning group on the third leg of the rally with the Touareg crews of Carlos Sainz/Lucas Cruz, Nasser Al-Attiyah/Timo Gottschalk and Mark Miller/Ralph Pitchford rank­ing in pos­i­tions two to four in the world’s most extreme desert rally.

The over­all lead belongs to Monday’s stage win­ners Stéphane Peterhansel and Jean-Paul Cottret from the X-raid BMW team. On the 182km spe­cial stage from La Rioja to Fiambala in Argentina, the rally’s level of dif­fi­culty increased sig­ni­fic­antly with drivers hav­ing to nego­ti­ate scree pas­sages, soft sand and high dunes. Sainz, who man­aged to set a best stage time of 3hrs, 1min and 3secs, recor­ded an aver­age speed of just 60.315 km/h on the stage.

Alfie Cox and Jürgen Schröder (Nissan Navara) over­came a punc­ture and fuel pump prob­lems to fin­ish sev­enth on the stage. Their cour­ageous effort helped them to sev­enth place over­all in the car cat­egory. De Villiers and fel­low South Africans Cox and Pitchford have done their coun­try proud on the Dakar so far, and it would be a pity if mech­an­ical prob­lems were to put an end to De Villiers’ chances of retain­ing his title.

Photo Credits:
Proteas in com­mand­ing pos­i­tion at Newlands — Photo – Hashim Amla: Source – mysportsblog.wordpress.com
Birds run Bundesliga cham­pi­ons close — Photo – Lefa Tsutsulupa: Source – daylife.com
Big bout res­ched­uled for February — Photo – Francois Botha: Source – fotoglif.com
De Lange and du Preez bowl Eagles to vic­tory — Photo – Con de Lange: Source – fscu.co.za
Titans and Cobras way out in front — Photo – Nashua Titans: Source – flickr.com
Giniel’s title hopes under threat — Photo – Giniel de Villiers: Source – quickpic.co.za

Useful Links:
South Africa 2010 World Cup
2010 World Cup Stadiums
2010 World Cup Host Cities
2010 World Cup Accommodation