"There’s the smell of revolution in the air this week, both to the north of us as well as over in the United States, where the Republican Party reptiles are gathering in New York. And this past week saw the closing down of the only apparent opposition party in Zimbabwe. Was the Movement for Democratic Change a bona fide opposition party, or simply a ‘cut-out’?" Web crawler extraordinaire Ian Fraser ponders the political.

The Border Bulldogs will want to make amends for last weekend’s drubbing when they meet the Mighty Elephants in East London on Friday evening in their Currie Cup first-division match at the Absa Stadium. The Bulldogs were unbeaten in four matches until coming badly unstuck against the Boland Cavaliers in Wellington.

Motorists are advised to avoid the Johannesburg city centre on Thursday due to a march by an expected 20 000 South African Democratic Teacher’s Union members, metro police said. Metro police spokesperson Superintendent Edna Mamonyane said the marchers will make their way from Braamfontein’s Civic Centre, along De Korte, Harrison and Eloff streets to 111 Commissioner street.

At their peaks, Jennifer Capriati and Lleyton Hewitt attracted all sorts of attention at every tournament. At this US Open, they are almost an afterthought. That’s fine for the former number-one players, especially while they are winning. Hewitt won his first-round match on Wednesday, defeating Wayne Ferreira of South Africa 6-1, 7-5, 6-4.

Alex Wharf had a debut to savour as England beat India by seven wickets in the first one-day international at Trent Bridge in Nottingham on Wednesday. The 29-year-old Glamorgan quick, only in the squad because Kabir Ali was out injured, took three for 30 as India were bowled out for a meagre 170.

South Africa’s Wayne Ferreira played the final US Open match of his 15-year career on Wednesday, losing in the first round to former world number one Lleyton Hewitt.
The 32-year-old Ferreira plans to retire after representing South Africa for the last time in a Davis Cup tie at the end of September.

French anti-terrorist police opened a formal inquiry on Wednesday into three tunnels discovered under La Santé, Paris’s main high-security jail, whose inmates range from millionaire society fraudsters and corrupt politicians to Islamic militants and Basque separatists.