No one would describe it as a perfect competition logistically but the URC may be better placed than other leagues to cash inHere’s a quiz question as an eventful domestic rugby season enters its closing days: which of the two leagues staging grand finals in Twickenham and Cape Town respectively this weekend has had the better campaign? As the Premiership braces itself for the financial demise of a third club inside nine months, a clear winner is increasingly emerging.No one would describe the United Rugby Championship as a perfect competition from a logistical perspective, other than for long-haul travel experts specialising in flights to and from southern Africa. But credit where it is due. While tickets for Saturday’s final between...
Those who went on rebel tours to South Africa were welcomed back into the fold in stark contrast to the treatment of their West Indies counterparts who took the Blood RandDoes English cricket have a problem with race? This has become an urgent question in the past week, driven not by some hard-won moment of forensic self-analysis but by comments on a podcast from the former England opener Michael Carberry.It’s also a terrible question. Here’s a better one: is there any part of English cricket’s power structures that doesn’t have a problem with race? Related: 'It’s just not OK': Jimmy Anderson calls on cricket to raise BAME representation Related: It will be a team decision if we protest over George...
‘I’m being sacrilegious but we need to look at artificial surfaces,’ says the Wanderers groundsman, Evan Flint, amid climate crisisEvan Flint has his feet up, at last. It is day four of the final Test between England and South Africa and, as chief groundsman, all he can do is watch as Rassie van der Dussen and Dean Elgar grind out the beginnings of a doomed rearguard action.Flint has been at the Wanderers since last spring, lured north after 10 and a half years at Newlands, where he won groundsman of the year during his last two seasons. He had had a lot to cope with. Related: The Spin | Cricket feels heat as climate crisis creates corridor of uncertainty Related:...
He played rugby for England and cricket for South Africa but his work in law and politics in South Africa was also a true reflection of the man who died in January aged 89When Cecil Rhodes was defining the ideal candidate upon whom to bestow one of his Oxford scholarships, the old imperialist could have had Clive van Ryneveld, a future recipient, in mind: a scholar and a sportsman – dashing centre three-quarter, stylish batsman – of outstanding personal qualities.In his last will and testament, revealed after his death in 1902, Rhodes – a firm believer in the supremacy of the white race – wrote that the awards should go to candidates to whom a “fondness of and success in many...