Ken Borland

The only words South African cricket all-rounder Albie Morkel was able to get through the cellphone to his wife Marthmari, before he was bundled into a car and driven to prison were “I’m going to be stuck in Mozambique for a little longer, there’s a problem but I can’t talk now because the guards are coming with their AK47s”.

The harrowing ordeal, which Morkel, one of South Africa’s most internationally famous cricketers thanks to his nine years in the Indian Premier League, describes as “the most horrific two days of my life”, began a couple of hours earlier when the 37-year-old arrived at Chingozi Airport in Tete, north-western Mozambique, after a tiger-fishing trip to the lower Zambezi River in July.

The incident had its genesis in a hunting trip Morkel, who is known for his love of the bush, went on a couple of weeks earlier. Upon his return, he asked his gardener to clean his car. When the gardener found a small packet of ammunition in the vehicle, he wasn’t sure what to do with it, so he put it in the side pocket of one of Morkel’s old cricket bags.

That was the bag Morkel thought would be perfect to put his fishing tackle in when he went to Mozambique. Getting through O.R. Tambo International Airport and arriving in Tete without any problems, the drama only started when the Pretoria-based cricketer was about to board his flight back to Johannesburg.

“It had been a fantastic trip and I was at the airport on my way back when the airport security found some ammunition in my bag that I didn’t know about. With the language barrier, things escalated very quickly into a very big mess. I told the other guys in our party to go ahead and board and I’ll just sort this problem out and catch the later flight.

“But two hours later I was in Tete provincial prison for the two most horrific days of my life. I was held for the serious criminal charge of weapons smuggling and nobody at the court was willing to help me before it closed at 3pm so I was taken to jail. The situation got a bit ugly when the guy helping me jostled one of the policemen a bit and out came the AK47s, I was pushed into a car and next thing I knew I was at the gates of the prison,” Morkel revealed on The Dan Nicholl Show on Wednesday night.

Morkel was fortunate to find the help of two inmates when his spirits were at their lowest.

“I’ve never been close to jail before and this place was just inhuman, 800 prisoners, some of them clearly mentally unstable, all together in an open prison in 45 degree heat. They were so crammed together that at night they would just relieve themselves on each other.

“Luckily I met a couple of guys in jail, Andrew was a computer tech guy from Malawi, who had been inside for six months because he couldn’t show his papers after they had had a few drinks in the pub, and the other guy had been there for 11 months after being arrested for selling cellphone batteries that the police thought he had stolen.

“They told me who I should stay away from and that the shade belonged to the main okes. Fortunately I was allowed to sleep alone in the office at night and five minutes before the jail closed on Friday afternoon for the weekend, my friends on the outside managed to get me out,” Morkel recalls.

Quite how they were able to dig a famous sportsman, whose name meant nothing in northern Mozambique, out of his predicament, remains unclear, but Morkel has a reasonable idea.

“They never got into how they managed to get me released, but they knew how the system works over there.”

https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/2009079/albie-morkel-tells-of-his-hell-in-mozambique-cell/

Swys de Bruin endured some teething problems early on in his career as Lions head honcho, but hats off to the well-travelled coach for keeping the faith and his nerve and maintaining the high standards of excellence that have characterised Ellis Park as the team head into their third successive SuperRugby final on Saturday.

Change – especially when it involves losing someone as integral as Johan Ackermann – is often difficult but it is a credit to the smooth systems in place at Ellis Park and De Bruin’s own wisdom and level-headedness that the performance of the Lions in the long run has barely suffered.

It was not as smooth a road to the final this year, which has forced them to make the daunting trip to Christchurch, but reports of the Lions’ demise were greatly exaggerated. Sure, they have had their problems this season, but in a way that makes their achievement all the more impressive because they had to overcome greater challenges to reach the final.

Without their inspirational captain, Warren Whiteley, for most of the season, the Lions also lost their most influential player in Malcolm Marx at a crucial stage of the tournament while Jaco Kriel, a matchwinner, has been ruled out of the entire campaign due to injury. They also had to cope with the departure of integral players like Ruan Ackermann, Faf de Klerk and Akker van der Merwe, while also dealing with the rumours swirling around contracted players wanting to leave and those that did depart mid-season like Rohan Janse van Rensburg.

Apart from still churning out the results against the odds, with so many things mounted against them, the Lions have also still played with flair, which is unsurprising considering how obsessed coach De Bruin is with scoring tries; in a sport which is marred by plenty of cynicism, it is refreshing to have a head coach state so openly, with almost childish naivety, that all he cares about are tries. But that is why most people started playing rugby.

Whatever the result of Saturday’s final, and it would be an upset for the ages if the Lions were to beat the Crusaders in Christchurch, they have done the nation proud. And I don’t agree with the prophets of doom who say it’s now or never for the Lions to win SuperRugby; these are probably the same naysayers who predicted the team would fall off the rails this year already.

The wonderful thing that the culture of success at Ellis Park – and here we must also give the credit to the superb leadership trio of Rudolf Straeuli, Kevin de Klerk and Altmann Allers – has done is to ensure that the Lions are now the team everyone wants to play for. It is the first port of call for the SA Schools star looking to start his professional career.

And the pipeline is working well. Players such as Madosh Tambwe, Marco Jansen van Vuuren, Len Massyn, Hacjivah Dayimani, Gianni Lombard, Jeanluc Cilliers, Wandisile Simelane, Reinhard Nothnagel, Keagan Glade, Asenathi Ntlabakanye, Cristen van Niekerk, Mark Snyman and Yanga Hlalu will be at the vanguard of the Lions’ efforts to remain the undisputed champion franchise in South Africa.

It was not always thus and, as Allers said in his address at the post-match function after the semi-final win over the Waratahs, the last home game of the season, so many of the current Lions stars came to Ellis Park with the reject tags around the neck.

The irony is that so many of those players were shown the door just up the road at Loftus Versfeld, the former SuperRugby champions who used to be the place of choice for young players. The new Bulls coach, John Mitchell, is currently negotiating with the board to fix the mess that has been created there by years of terrible talent identification.

The beneficiaries have been the Lions and so many of the franchise’s stars now carry a new label, the precious tag of being a Springbok.

https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-citizen-gauteng/20180804/282651803301630

Settler’s Park Nature Reserve – view from the main parking lot.

The Settlers Park Nature Reserve is situated in the Baakens River Valley in Port Elizabeth and while there are steep cliffs on the northern side of the river, the opposite side provides the opportunity to climb a path into the Eastern Cape Fynbos.

I was making my way up one of the steeper sections when I heard a strident kek kek kek kek repeatedly coming from nearby, which I presumed to be the alarm call of a francolin. So of course, once I had stealthily approached the area the call was coming from, I began looking on the ground, amongst the grasses and shrubs.

And yet I could not spot any francolin … so I began casting my eyes higher up and there, in a low tree, sat the most unexpected source of the ongoing call, continuing to badger me for daring to invade its space.

A Peregrine Falcon which had possibly flown across from the cliffs on the other side of the river on a hunting foray and was now complaining at me in persistent fashion, perhaps because it had not been a successful trip. After some minutes the magnificent, endangered predator gave me one last glare with its large, ruthless eyes and then took off to head back towards the cliffs.

The Peregrine Falcon is often seen along the valley but it was still a very pleasant surprise to see one perched and being so vocal.

Plenty of other birds frequent the pools, reeds and bush around the Baakens River and, upon descending from the main car park there was lots of activity around one of the drifts across the river. Cape Wagtail and Streakyheaded Canary were bathing and then flew into the protection of a tree next to the water, while Malachite Kingfisher disappeared down the river in a flash of ultramarine blue.

Southern Red Bishop and Southern Masked Weaver were busy in the reeds, while Levaillant’s Cisticola was more secretive but present in good numbers. Bronze Mannikin were also attracted to the water, while the deeper pools boasted Reed Cormorant, Egyptian Goose, Grey and Blackheaded Heron.

Being the Eastern Cape, there is obviously valley bushveld around and these thickets held Olive Thrush, with a juvenile deeply concealed, Speckled Mousebird, Blackeyed Bulbul, Barthroated Apalis, Knysna Lourie and Sombre Bulbul.

The more open areas on the hilltops feature clumps of bush and Fiscal Flycatcher, Fiscal Shrike and Pintailed Whydah can be seen here, while Kelp Gull and Cape Crow fly overhead.

A Small Grey Mongoose was seen darting across one of the paths on the hillside and, on the return back up the hill to the main car park, just waiting quietly brought a Forest Canary at close quarters.

Where is Settlers Park Nature Reserve?

Sightings list

Olive Thrush

Reed Cormorant

Laughing Dove

Forktailed Drongo

Southern Red Bishop

Southern Masked Weaver

Cape Wagtail

Streakyheaded Canary

Malachite Kingfisher

Fiscal Flycatcher

Peregrine Falcon

Kelp Gull

Fiscal Shrike

Cape Crow

Speckled Mousebird

Blackeyed Bulbul

Levaillant’s Cisticola

Barthroated Apalis

Small Grey Mongoose

Knysna Lourie

Egyptian Goose

Grey Heron

Bronze Mannikin

Sombre Bulbul

Blackheaded Heron

Pintailed Whydah

Forest Canary

Coach Mark Boucher was understandably a very happy man after the Multiply Titans’ victory over the bizhub Highveld Lions at the BidVest Wanderers Stadium sent his team into an 11-point lead at the top of the Sunfoil Series log, but he also took time out to praise Lungi Ngidi for his attitude during his rehabilitation and thanked his medical staff for their work on the hugely-promising fast bowler.

Ngidi spearheaded the Titans’ nine-wicket win with match figures of nine for 83 in his first game back from a stress fracture in his back.

“It was very satisfying to see Lungi come through and a lot of credit must go to the medical staff because it was a very serious injury for a fast bowler, a very scary time for him. But they started him bowling again in stages and he needed to change his lifestyle a bit.

“The door has opened up for him at international level, so I told Lungi it was up to him to bash it down. Well everyone has certainly got their eyes on him now! His body has developed, he’s stronger and leaner and his professionalism has changed too.

“So the results he achieved in his first game back were not really a surprise for me, although he is still a work in progress and he will get better. We were tempted to play him a week earlier in Pietermaritzburg, but the medical staff are hired to do a job and they said even though it was possible, they preferred not to rush him back then,” Boucher said.

On a sporty Wanderers pitch, Titans captain Aiden Markram was also a contender for man of the match after innings of 85 and 81 not out, continuing the youngster’s superb form this summer.

“Aiden is still scoring a lot of runs, which makes me very happy. When you look at him, it’s almost as if he’s destined for great things and he’s really taken to his role. He hasn’t been around for a long time, but he’s just looking more and more confident.

“I’m sure the Proteas will relish having him in their system and he understands that the opposition at international level will get tougher and people will start looking at his technique and try to find flaws. But Aiden’s feet are on the floor, that’s his character. He’s also a work in progress, but he’s hungry for runs and he did the hard yards in that first innings,” Boucher said.

But the coach also had praise for a player that is a fair way from playing for the Proteas, but has been an absolute standout for the Titans this season – Malusi Siboto.

The 30-year-old is the leading wicket-taker with 17 at 21.35 and he produced a top-class display in the second innings against the Lions, taking four for 26 as the home side were bundled out for just 165, leaving the Titans with a straightforward target of just 133 for the first win of the season.

“Last season as well, Malusi is an unsung hero, he does the hard work like bowling into the wind, and can keep the run-rate down as well as taking wickets. He’s also made crucial runs for us and we’re going to try and get him into being an all-rounder for us.

“In certain conditions, he’s the leader of our attack. He’s one of those guys that goes under the radar, but if he’s not there then he leaves a massive hole in the team,” Boucher said.