Adam Wakefield

  The Compton Cricket Club in Australia (c) Katy Haber   It’s been a summer of strange in the south of Victoria, Australia’s second most populous state. Victoria is normally prone to dry summers, where temperatures march relentlessly into the mid-40s but this year rain and wet weather have loitered about since winter. In similar […]

With the Cricket World Cup upon us, for those who don’t really understand one of the most archaic sports going around, here is what you need to know about the teams competing (the ones who can win the tournament at least … apologies to the associate nations, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh), important players and other loose […]

As the circus that is World Cup comes to life in the subcontinent, a significant moment is upon South African cricket. Yes, the Proteas have headed eastward in effort to slay the ghost of Headingley past, but this will also be Graeme Smith’s last ODI adventure as captain of the side. Just yesterday he was […]

Tiaan Liebenberg, the fiery and popular Stormers hooker, has been ruled out for the rest of the season due to a torn anterior cruciate ligament muscle, which is one of four muscles that connect the bones of the knee joint. It will mean nine months on the sidelines, and cause Allister Coetzee a headache at […]

Upon surfing the net this afternoon, I see that Safa are headed in the direction of a name change, among other things, for Bafana Bafana. Well, it’s about damn time isn’t it? Safa, which is the one sports body in South Africa that will always be in the headlines for screw-ups and double dealing and […]

The ICC, not the most renowned organisation for getting things done (or doing them properly), showed some welcome grit when handing down the verdicts in the now infamous spot-fixing scandal against Pakistan’s Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif and former captain Salman Butt. For those not familiar with the details of the case, the three cricketers were […]

There is an ominous threat hanging over the established order of the oval ball, from lands large and rich in diversity. Since the coming of the professional era, rugby has slowly been spreading itself across continents with the IRB aiming to make the game rival soccer in popularity. It’s a tall order, but not impossible […]

Grand Slam. These two words are the most important a professional tennis player will hear in his or her respective career. It is the height of achievement in the tennis world where being a Grand Slam champion means your name is written into the folklore of the sport (and big endorsement deals perhaps). Four are […]

Have you ever seen a film where there are two characters, each pushing their own agenda, whose paths are destined to collide because it is just so? It’s a popular story arc in fictionalised works all over the world, since it gives a clear distinction between sides. Once the reader or viewer can see who […]

The Cricket World Cup (CWC) and South Africa have never had the best of relationships. Like two people who share a tempestuous love, they seem to be perfect for each other but invariably find some way to continually break up in an ugly manner, which makes conversations with your friends on that topic extremely awkward. […]

Leo Tolstoy wrote War and Peace, arguably one of the most celebrated pieces of fiction in the Western world. War and Peace is a story, grossly simplified, about five aristocratic families and how Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812, including the spectre of the invasion itself, goes about bringing change to the Tsarist society, which […]

Professional rugby has seen players represent teams from all over the world, with the number of South Africans plying their trade in Europe a well-known phenomenon. One man who already knows more about travel than most is 19-year-old JP du Plessis. Du Plessis represented Western Province at the 2009 Craven Week in East London, and […]