I’ve never heard a cricket fan say a kind thing about Graeme Smith. He’s arrogant and shouldn’t make himself  an opening batsman, seems to the biggest complaint.  His incessant gum-chewing is an issue and, then when he dehydrated at the World Cup in the Caribbean, there were howls in South African lounges and bars that he was being a being a big fat drama queen.

What gives here? It all seems rather uncharitable, to me.

I have a superficial understanding of cricket but do prefer it to other national sports and  keep half an eye on it. And it seems to me that South African cricket has never been in such good shape.

In the recent Ozzie Test series here and in Australia, we were clearly the best team and I’ve even heard commentators refer to us as "the South African juggernuat" at this 20/20 World Cup. Boy,  was I proud. Since when did we become a juggernuat feared by cricketers and fans around the world? Not so long ago it was the Australians who claimed that space — and did so  for about a decade!

So we crashed out to Pakistan in the semis at the 20/20 World Cup but they were on top form. Their bowling and fielding was superb and, really guys, you can’t win ‘em all. Click here to read Smith’s blog posted today on Standard Bank’s cricket website. 

I think we should be proud of our team and congratulate Mickey Arthur and Smith for bringing us out of the doldrums to a position of sustained strength. Says Ali Mustafa from Lahore at an IOL story about Smith’s blog post: 

Click here to read the IOL story and comments.

Now, if only Bafana Bafana could latch on to a young, arrogant Smith and put him together with a good local coach, and it’ll be the business. I’m filled with such foreboding for Bafana in the Confed Cup that I’ve decided to support Iraq instead though Egypt also rather takes my fancy.

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I hear from a couple of sports hacks that there are about 40 Indian journalist in SA for the IPL tasked with just following Sachin Tendulkar around. Man, that’s something. I don’t think any sports star anywhere could claim that kind of media attention. Not even Becks!

But then cricket is a religion in India and Tendulkar is a God. Check out this YouTube tribute to him (to cheesy Bollywood music) to get the idea:

And, having declared myself for the Rajasthani Royals, the team with the most personality, I think this slick Indian promo vid for the IPL is quite fun:

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1. It’s time to choose your team for the IPL, which kicks off this weekend. Check out this M&G run down of the eight teams. I’m supporting Kepler Wessels’s Chennai Super Kings, who came third last year.

2. We live in an odd country. Business Day has a story about a Port Elizabeth engineering firm with no black ownership or management control that has achieved the highest rating under SA’s codes of good practice for BEE — simply by meeting other criteria under the empowerment laws. Read the story here.

3. The ANC is unimpressed with Gauteng Health MEC Brian Hlongwa telling the Sowetan that he’s so rich that he does his MEC’s job for the love of the poor. Party spokesman Brian Sokutu told The Times the ANC was supported by the poor and ,therefore, “making such irresponsible statements where one brags about his wealth is inconsistent and un-ANC”. Read the story here. Oopsie. Looks like no one told Brian that the SACP and Cosatu are running the show in the alliance these days.

4. Zoopy has the pilot epsiode of cartoonist Zapiro’s TV show, Z News, that the SABC censored last year. Click here to go to the Zoopy page.

5. And Moneyweb’s Alec Hogg is dispelling Zuma gloom, which is worth a read here after ex-Sunday Times columnist David Bullard wrote:

Personally, I think we will look back on a Zuma presidency in years to come as a welcome relief from the divisive and racist misrule of Thabo Mbeki. Jacob Zuma is a man comfortable in his own skin and is intelligent enough to know what he doesn’t know. With any luck he’ll gather the necessary skills around him and listen to advice; something Mbeki seemed reluctant to do.

Read the full Bullard column here.

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1. A South African businessman found R450 000 in R100 notes in the room safe of a Port Elizabeth hotel room forgotten behind by Indian Premier League team Kings XI Punjab — whose players include Australian Brett Lee, Indian Yuvraj Singh and Sri Lankan Mahela Jayawardene. For his troubles, he got a bottle of whisky and a signed cricket bat.

2. Finance Minister Trevor Manuel says he is willing to carry on in his post if asked by the country’s new president, although he could not “carry on forever”. Read the story at Business Day here. There are rumours in the political journalism circles that JZ may ask him to be deputy president. It would be a wily move (and Zuma is a canny old fox) but would Trev, whose number four on the ANC list, accept?

3. Business Day also reports that retail figures fell a record 4.5% in February, much more steeply than expected. Retail is the third biggest sector in SA and this could mean another rate cut at the Reserve Bank’s policy meeting at the end of April. Read the story here.

4. Here’s an interesting business story. South African construction giant  Murray & Roberts has pulled out of a R5-billion contract in Dubai, bringing its cancelled order book in the Middle East and elsewhere to R20-billion. Read the Engineering News story here. M&R doesn’t play around and its CEO is highly regarded so my guess is that they’re making so much hay while the sun shines with 2010 contruction in SA (for example, the Gautrain) that they don’t need the hassle of Dubai.

5. Talk about putting it out there. The Sowetan reports that Gauteng Health MEC Brian Hlongwa says he is so rich (from his consulting firm) he does his job for the love of the poor. This after the accusations that he could not afford his R7.2-million Joburg mansion on his salary. Glory be, we wish our next president could find himself gainful employment (perhaps with Hlongwa) so that we can all stop being suspicious about whose bankrolling him while in office. Read the Sowetan story here.

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Here’s a cute little cartoon about  the Indian Premier League being staged in South Africa in April at Wonkie, a South African blog featuring the work of South African cartoonists. Click here.

They tackle the news of the day in cartoons and I’ve been checking in for a couple of weeks and I like what I see. Nice one, guys!

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1. ANC Youth League President Julius  Malema  will be visiting the koeksister monument in the conservative Afrikaner stonghold, Orania, this weekend to shorrt the breeze with the youth of the Freedom Front Plus. This should be good and give the ANC’s chief wit an opportunity to exercise his mouth. Let’s not forgot he called the DA’s youth wing chief  Helen Zille’s “garden boy”. Read the story on IOL here.

2. The repo rate has dropped a full percentage point. Cool!

3. The exciting Indian Premier League will be held in  SA next month as India has been judged too unsafe. Even cooler! See Cric Info for the full story.

4. Health Minister Barbara Hogan has called on the government to apologise for refusing to give the Dalai Lama a visa and the peace indaba he was supposed to attend here has been postponed indefinitely because of the furore. Click here for a far side cartoon about it on the Cafe Africa blog.

5.  Business Day is reporting that the row between the government and SA Airways is about to explode as it was revealed that Public Enterprises Minister Brigitte Mabandla was told about the estimated R8m settlement with  CEO Khaya Ngqula when he left the airline this month — but she apparently failed to inform the rest of the Cabinet. Read the story here.

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1. Today’s Mail & Guardian has an interesting insight into what’s going on behind closed doors at the National Prosecuting Authority regarding ANC president Jacob Zuma’s case. His legal team told the NPA at the meeting this week they should drop the corruption charges because of two new pieces of evidence.

No further details were released, but the Mail & Guardian has established that the two principal strands of evidence put before Mpshe concern:

* Mbeki’s role in the 1999 arms deal and new details of his alleged involvement in impropriety in the awarding of contracts for new defence equipment.
* Claims that Mbeki influenced the Scorpions’ controversial “Special Browse Mole” report, which raised concerns about funding and support for Zuma from Libya and Angola as well as the possibility of violent resistance to his prosecution.

What Zuma told the NPA

2.  The Times is reporting that Zuma’s legal team has pinned its hopes on potentially embarrassing tapes of Scorpions investigators allegedly discussing the case against him with former National Prosecuting Authority boss Bulelani Ngcuka. Click here.

3. And IOL’s got a good story on Willem’s Heath powerful role as deal maker in all of this. Read it here.

4. Here’s a cool little story at the Daily Dispatch about how a brewing mistake and a chance online meeting has led to a Grahamstown meadery (yup, that stuff Robin Hood and his Merry Men used to drink) earning it a world-wide reputation as a leader in mead technology. Read it here.

5. And it’s looking up at the oval. We bowled the Ozzies out for 209 yesterday and we’re going into the second day of the Cape Town cricket Test 57 without loss. Although we’ve already lost the Test series (it’s the best of three) we might at least end it with a modicum of respectability.

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1. Business Day says an announcement is expected within days after a meeting in Pretoria of the National Prosecuting Authority’s acting head Mokotedi Mpshe, senior management and the team responsible for ANC president Jacob Zuma’s prosecution. It is widely expected that corruption charges against Zuma (that are result of the 2005 corruption and fraud conviction of his former financial adviser Schabir Shaik) will be dropped. Read the Business Day story here.

2. The ANC is livid that this has leaked out before being announced, with ANC national executive committee member Lindiwe Sisulu saying the leaks are undermining the pary’s attempt to resolve Zuma’s charges in a transparent and defendable manner. Curiously, it was Mo Shaik, Schabir brother, who let the cat out of the bag. All I can say, Ms Sisulu, is what planet are you living on? You guys don’t any help in undermining transparency. You’re doing just fine by yourselves. Read the IOL story here.

3. A Bloemfontein butchery owner has appeared in court after three human bodies were found in his fridge, allegedly alongside animal meat. They were apparently left behind by the previous tenant of the premesis, a funeral home. Read the Beeld story here.

4. It’s the first day of the third Ozzie cricket Test in Cape Town today. Jacques Kallis is the stand-in captain of South Africa.

5. Check out this picture from the Daily Dispatch in East London to go with their story of traffic cops stopping a taxi driver licensed to carry 13 people packing 43 kids into the taxi on the school run. Click here. Sies!

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I bet you’d like to do this to Graeme Smith after we were hammered in the second Ozzie Test:

Read the full story

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1. We have to make 302 runs today on the last day of the Ozzie Test in Durban. Yikes! It can be done as we’re 244 for four. Come on, guys, give us some heroics!

2. There’s a big storm brewing over the Sunday Times story about Schabir Shaik, Jacob Zuma’s former financial adviser, who got medical parole last week because he’s supposed to be in the final stages of terminal illness. Now the doctor who told the Sunday Times that he had discharged Shaik from hospital four months ago because he was well enough to leave is saying he was misquoted while the health department has complied a report for Health Minister Barbara Hogan on how he was allowed to stay in a private ward in a state hospital for four months at taxpayers’ expense.

3. The percentage of mortgage applications turned down by banks leapt to 61% in February, compared with 41% in the same period last year, reports News24. This means, says property economist Erwin Rode, that you need to get saving for a deposit if you want to buy a house. Best you buy a caravan and park it your parent’s yard if you’re a first-time home buyer and give up those dreams of a holiday home if you have bought a house. Read the full story here.

4. And more gloom on the property front. Business Day reports that house prices are expected to fall more this year before recovering early next year. The price index from one of the big South African mortgage origination firms shows that prices fell a further 0.7% last month compared with a year ago. The average house price was R827553. Read the full story here.

5. Two-thirds of the 62 firefighters at Cape Town International Airport are “poorly trained” and have little or no general firefighting experience, says IOL which has laid its hands on internal airport documents. So no sneaking off for smokes in the toilet at Cape Town airport, people! And stay clear of the area when the puff-happy Germans hit town for the soccer World Cup next year. Read the full story here.

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