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Ken Borland



Franschhoek 0

Posted on January 09, 2019 by Ken

 

 

The view over the Franschhoek Valley from the pass leading to Mont Rochelle Nature Reserve

The view over the Franschhoek Valley from the pass leading to Mont Rochelle Nature Reserve.

Driving up the Franschhoek Pass to the car park of the Mont Rochelle Nature Reserve, the views over the famous wine-producing valley are already spectacular, but once I had parked, I was more interested in the beautifully chirpy, melodic twittering loudly emanating from somewhere close by.

Dashing off, I found a Cape Grassbird prominently perched on some scrubby Restios and singing away in the early-morning sunshine. For me, it is one of the prettiest calls around and I felt doubly blessed to also have such a good, clear sighting of an impressive bird that can look quite dapper with its black stripes on rusty red and a long tail.

Usually, the Grassbird is skulking around in dense vegetation, but in the fynbos areas of the Western Cape, it apparently becomes quite territorial and brazen in its calling from prominent perches.

Mont Rochelle protects prime mountain fynbos and although there are not great numbers of birds to see, especially when the mists come over the mountain, there is much of interest.

The view into Mont Rochelle Nature Reserve

The view into Mont Rochelle Nature Reserve.

A lovely little Karoo Prinia, another streaky bird with a long tail, was also spotted as the undulating trail became more wind-swept, while Yellow Bishop were buzzing around the Proteas in the drainage lines and Cape Canary were also easily spotted.

The pretty town of Franschhoek itself is, understandably when you consider the name means “French Corner”, full of alien vegetation, most notably the vineyards that produce the marvellous wine, but that does not mean the birding is bad.

Some of the beautiful gardens of the town host Swee Waxbill feeding on the grasses in Spring time (late September for this trip), while the impressive Malachite Sunbird can find lots of nectar sources in town.

There are alien vertebrates to go with the introduced vegetation, with Grey Squirrels reaching the northern-most limit of their range in Franschhoek, and enjoying all the big trees of the urban areas, while Mallards frequent the Franschhoek River alongside the bird they most often hybridise with, the Yellowbilled Duck.

Helmeted Guineafowl are the most common bird of the actual vineyards, although we now call them “Wine Turkeys”.

That’s because the charming English couple we met on their honeymoon saw we were birders while we were on the wine tram (a magnificent way to do a tour of the estates) and started telling us about all the “Wine Turkeys” they had seen during the trip!

Sightings list

Egyptian Goose

Hadeda Ibis

Reed Cormorant

Swee Waxbill

Grey Squirrel

Helmeted Guineafowl

Chacma Baboon

Rock Martin

Cape Grassbird

Karoo Prinia

Pied Crow

Yellow Bishop

Cape Canary

Mallard

Cape Bulbul

Blacksmith Plover

Yellowbilled Duck

Blackshouldered Kite

Whitethroated Swallow

Cape White-Eye

Malachite Sunbird

Redwinged Starling

Sacred Ibis

 

Cricket looking to toss a boomerang 0

Posted on September 20, 2018 by Ken

 

As we have seen so often in rugby, making changes to long-standing rules of the game almost invariably brings unexpected consequences and there has been a lot of talk recently about doing away with one of cricket’s most famous traditions, a move which I believe will boomerang badly on the sport.

South African captain Faf du Plessis was the latest to bring up doing away with the toss, although his beliefs lost some credibility because they came straight after the Proteas had been mauled in their two Tests in Sri Lanka.

Various high-profile Australians have also backed the ending of the toss, but again, these comments were mostly made after they had lost the Ashes in England.

Proponents of the eradication of the toss propose that the visiting team just gets to choose whether they want to bat or bowl, thereby supposedly removing home advantage, which the anti-toss advocates say has become a major problem in world cricket.

Happily, a couple of months ago the ICC Cricket Committee discussed doing away with the toss and decided that it was an integral part of the game and should be spared.

No doubt they had a better grasp of the actual facts surrounding the issue. Home ground advantage has always played a role in cricket, as it does in just about every sport, but winning or losing the toss actually does not have a major effect.

In this decade, the team winning the toss still only wins 43.78% of Test matches, so it is not a massive advantage. There is a slight benefit because only 35.13% of teams that lose the toss go on to win the match. Historically, Australia are the only side that wins more than 50% of the Tests in which they have won the toss, and even then it’s just 50.49%, only slightly higher than their overall success rate of 47.16%.

I believe giving the visiting team total control over what they do first would have a major bearing on the game, which is where the unintended consequences come in, especially in countries like India or New Zealand.

It’s fair to say the weather is out of the control of the people who prepare the pitches in those countries and they can only do so much to negate the effect of overhead conditions. Doing away with the toss would grossly undermine teams like India and New Zealand – in the heat of the sub-continent, dry, dusty, deteriorating pitches are almost inevitable and India would be batting second every time; conversely, New Zealand is usually pretty damp and overcast and the Black Caps would find themselves sent in to bat every time.

It would happen often in England as well that the home team would automatically have to bat at the most difficult time and it could also affect the Proteas at home.

What it boils down to is the ICC actually using the mechanisms they already have in place to ensure fair conditions – they already have rules in the playing conditions when it comes to unfair pitches and they just need to enforce them more diligently, especially when it comes to the sub-continent and even some South African green mambas.

The perception that away teams are struggling does have some basis in fact. In this decade, the visiting team has lost 51.75% of Tests, up from 46.40% in the 2000s. It is interesting, though, that the away team has been winning Tests in the last 20 years at pretty much the same rate as they have been doing through the history of the game.

It is, of course, the number of away draws that has dropped significantly in recent times; down from 47.31% of Tests in the 1960s to just 20.76% in this decade. That is obviously a positive but it also points to the rise of T20 cricket and batsmen being able to hit the ball but not defend against the turning, seaming or swinging delivery.

The problem is not the toss, it’s modern-day batsmen being ill-prepared for foreign conditions, and sometimes the ICC allows the home union to get away with cheap shots in terms of pitch preparation.

Bringing the crowds back to the Sun City fairways 0

Posted on September 17, 2018 by Ken

 

In the previous decade, when the Nedbank Golf Challenge was held in December and was able to attract top-10 players, Sun City was famous for the congestion that would occur throughout the resort as corporate South Africa and students would come flocking for their annual end-of-year party.

Crowds have dwindled since those days, as both the sport and the economy have changed, but last year’s Nedbank Golf Challenge was noticeable for the upturn in crowd figures and just a busier feel around the resort and on the fairways scattered amongst the ancient volcanic craters of the Pilanesberg.

A major reason for that was the focus Sun International and their hospitality partners Circa put on making the whole NGC experience more spectator-friendly and not just an event catering for the corporates safely secluded away in their air-conditioned marquees. And, given the success of 2017, they are going to drive for even bigger crowd numbers for this year’s tournament from November 8-11.

“The move from December, when it was the year-end function for most spectators, to November meant we had to worry about losing the public, especially the scholars and those writing matric exams, and we lost a lot of the day visitors we traditionally had. So we’ve been trying to make sure we bring those crowds back and the crowds are getting back to the way we begun with, with more than 65 000 people coming to Sun City.

“So this year we’re making even more space for the public, without changing things for the corporates. We’re opening up a huge amount more space on 18 with a three-tier structure that has a lot more ground-level space and will provide great public viewing. The entertainment area was one of the highlights of last year’s tournament, we want to capitalise on that and its times will be extended for a lot longer. Circa are running the public areas and are bringing in a lot of variety,” Eugene Boniface, the group manager for content at Sun International, said.

Workmen have been on-site since April, with 14 600 square-metres of infrastructure being set up, and 1300 tonnes of scaffolding, with Circa promising a real amphitheatre around the 18th green. Apart from the focus on making the Nedbank Golf Challenge more crowd-friendly, work has also been going on on the course.

The 17th tee has been moved around to add 30-odd metres to the tee-shot and make it more difficult, while the bunkers have undergone massive change with grass now on the faces rather than sand, to make it more playable for the golfers after there were complaints.

 

 

Time for the Cape Cobras to learn to ‘tai’ 0

Posted on December 18, 2017 by Ken

 

The Kalenjin tribe of Kenya’s Rift Valley are famous for their dominance of long-distance running, numerous world and Olympic champions having come from their population of about five million, a staggering statistical anomaly that has had sports scientists scrambling to study them.

While scientists have pointed to a complex interaction between genetic and socio-economic factors for their success, the Kalenjin runners are also famous for their stoicism and endurance. It is that combined with natural abilities, that makes them world-beaters. They use the word ‘tai’ as an exhortation to keep going forward and they certainly do just that.

Much of the work on the persevering, “no gain without pain” Kalenjin has been done at the University of Cape Town and perhaps the cricket fraternity based in the city that enjoys the best standard of living in the country needs to go and study up on key traits for sporting success like determination and not blaming your failures on your opposition.

The RamSlam T20 Challenge final takes place on Saturday in Centurion and some of the Cape Cobras management and media seem to believe that they are not there due to some incredible conspiracy that involves the Titans and the weather conspiring against them. Never mind the fact that the star-studded Cobras team did not win their first three games and then threw away a winning position in their last round-robin match, where victory would have seen them hosting the semi-final against the Dolphins that was washed out on Thursday evening in Durban.

As the 2019 World Cup nears and the mental fortitude of our players is once again put under the most ruthless of microscopes, it is alarming that many of our Proteas are playing in an environment where excuse-making, blaming others and even accusing other teams of matchfixing is encouraged.

The Titans, by topping the log by miles, earned the right to prepare for their semi-final in whatever manner they saw fit, and they decided to spare their leading players the exertions of travelling to Cape Town to play on Friday, then to Durban to play on Sunday and then returning to Centurion on Monday, leaving just one day to prepare for the knockout match.

Such are the rewards for performance and they should be praised for the high standards they have brought to the competition, not tainted by slanderous allegations in the Cape that they were involved in some sort of matchfixing.

Instead of trying to bring everyone down to their under-performing standards, the Cobras, who have a wealth of talent at their disposal, should rather be focused on bridging the gap between themselves and the Titans.

In keeping with the sore-losers image they are cultivating so well in Cape Town, some of their media were quick to jump all over the Titans for only fielding five players of colour in their semi-final win over the Warriors, due to Henry Davids mangling his knee shortly before the toss.

The word from Cricket South Africa is that there will be no action taken against the Titans because the move was cleared by the head of their transformation committee, Max Jordaan, beforehand. It was a common sense decision because four minutes before the toss is hardly the time to rush someone in from outside the squad, without a warm-up.

There was no complaint from the Warriors, either, but there will always be that element in the Western Cape that knows better, watching from their vantage point behind the Mountain.

It seems there will always be the haters in South African sport when a team enjoys prolonged success.

 

https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-citizen-gauteng/20171216/282570198460108

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    Galatians 5:25 – “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep walking in step with the Spirit.”

    There is only one Christ and all things that are preached in his name must conform to his character. We can only know Christ’s character through an intimate and personal relationship with him.

    How would Christ respond in situations in which you find yourself? Would he be underhanded? Would he be unforgiving and cause broken relationships?

    “The value of your faith and the depth of your spiritual experience can only be measured by their practical application in your daily life. You can spend hours at mass crusades; have the ability to pray in public; quote endlessly from the Word; but if you have not had a personal encounter with the living Christ your outward acts count for nothing.” – Solly Ozrovech, A Shelter From The Storm

     

     



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