LANCE Klusener’s heavyweight bat and cavalier approach have combined to make him the World Cup’s leading six hitter after the first two rounds. Klusener, whose ferocious late order hitting has been a vital ingredient of South Africa’s smooth passage into the semifinals, has cleared the boundary nine times. He leads by one from India’s Saurav […]

FRIDAY, 10.30AM: ERNIE ELS carded a pedestrian five-over-par 75 after the first day’s play at the US Open on Thursday, putting him nine shots behind the leader, Payne Stewart, who closed with three straight birdies to finish on a four-under 66. Qualifier Mark Carnevale, playing in only his second US Open, was one stroke behind […]

IN BRIEF AWB MAN UNSURE WHO HIS SUPERIOR WAS THE Afrikaner Weerstandbeweging had a top-heavy rank structure, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission amnesty committee heard on Friday. Nonetheless, Abie Fourie, one of 10 AWB members applying for amnesty for the pre-election bombings of 1994, did not know who his immediate superior was, or where the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Friday 11.00am. THE coalition government of the Inkatha Freedom Party and the African National Congress in KwaZulu-Natal was committed to co-ordination and co-operation on all issues, the newly appointed provincial premier Lionel Mtshali said on Friday. Speaking shortly after being sworn in as premier, Mtshali said: “Our shared responsibility for the […]

LANCE Klusener would probably be the first name on every World Cup captain’s wish list and Australia’s Steve Waugh must have been thinking “if only” when he saw the organisers’ latest averages. Sitting proudly atop the South African list was Klusener – and he was somehow also included ahead of Waugh and his team mates […]

A 66-year-old Japanese businessman visiting South Africa asked his family at home on Friday to send $50000 as ransom for his release from captivity under unclear circumstances, police said. The businessman, whose name was withheld, telephoned his 32-year-old eldest son in Tokyo twice to give the bank account and other details for the requested payment. […]

Andrew Muchineripi Soccer Bafana Bafana fly to Luanda on Saturday with about as much relish as turkeys welcome December. I warned last week that the pride of our nation were tired and the evidence was there for all to see at Soccer City in midweek. Perhaps the sole consolation for a squad that will lack […]

George Kimball Golf The mythical designation – “Best Golfer Never to have Won a Major” – is less a title than a lifetime achievement award earned through years of exemplary frustration. It is one of those dubious honours to which nobody exactly aspires and, once won, can be shed in one of two ways, one […]

Howard Barrell Over a Barrel One of the more remarkable pieces of reportage on the election just past was a Sunday newspaper story early in the campaign, written without a hint of irony, about Musibudi Mangena, president of the Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo). Mangena was saying, again without a hint of irony, that whereas other […]

THURSDAY, 11.30AM: ERNIE ELS will have to contend not only with a persistent back problem in the US Open, but with what veteran Tom Watson describes as the worst, most difficult rough he has ever seen in the tournament. “It’s tight, it’s tough and you need a lot of patience,” says Els himself, who won […]