Ken Borland

The final day of the South African domestic cricket season saw Keegan Petersen return to the limelight as his defiant innings of 90 off 134 deliveries served up the CSA One-Day Cup title for his Northerns Titans team.

On a tricky Wanderers pitch, Petersen showed impressive skill, resolve and composure as he steered the Titans to their target of 249 with three wickets and a ball to spare, ending a run of defeats against the Central Gauteng Lions, their neighbours.

Petersen could not have done it without a superb innings from an up-and-coming star, Duan Jansen, the twin brother of Marco, who finished with a run-a-ball 61 not out. But Petersen’s innings was a reminder of the top-class quality he possesses and the batsmanship that has somehow almost been forgotten on the international stage.

The 32-year-old last played for South Africa in February 2024, as part of the ill-fated, weakened Proteas squad that lost two Tests in New Zealand, scoring a controlled 43 in his last innings. Just two years previously, he had burst on to the international scene against India, being named Player of the Series as South Africa won the rubber 2-1. Petersen scored 72 and 82 in the decisive Newlands Test as the Proteas, as they had done in the second Test, chased down a difficult target. It took his tally for the series to 276 runs (the most) at an average of 46, with three half-centuries in a series in which bowlers held sway on very tough pitches for batting.

Petersen had played just two Tests before the series; he would feature in only nine more before being jettisoned, registering just one more half-century, but going past 40 three times.

The diminutive right-hander hasn’t exactly feasted on runs in a tough 2025/26 season for the Titans team, getting starts but not going on to something more substantial being a feature of his campaign.

Petersen’s superb knock in the final left him with 315 runs in nine innings in the One-Day Cup, at an average of 35.00 and a strike-rate of 72.08, with two half-centuries. In four-day cricket, Petersen was his team’s leading run-scorer with 521 at 43.41, but only one other player batted in all seven matches. He collected one century and one half-century against the red ball. The well-travelled cricketer – he also played for Durham in 2022 – played just one T20 match, scoring 11.

“It’s been a seesaw season for the team, that’s no secret, and this trophy means a lot, it means we can take confidence into next season,” Petersen said after the trophy presentation in which he was also named man of the match.

“Phew! My knock … I knew I had to really buckle down at nought for two. But I also knew it was not impossible to still win, even though the bowlers were really on their mark. I knew I just needed to keep the required run-rate [4.98 at the start] within reach.

“It’s been an average, steady season for me, not bad. I only made two single-figure scores the whole season and I learnt a lot, I will take a lot away from this season. The main thing is I had 13 scores of between 20 and 40 and if I could have converted just five or six of them then it would have been a much more fulfilling season,” Petersen said.

The Paarl product knows that if he is to fulfil his dream of returning to the Proteas team, he needs to make more telling contributions more consistently.

“I’ve never given up on playing for South Africa again, that is still the goal in mind. I will keep playing to the best of my ability in whatever I do, because I want to get back there. It’s not that I’m out of form, I’m putting lots of starts together but then I get out.

“I need to take more responsibility, at times I can get ahead of the game. The way the modern game is, you feel you have to evolve in order to stay relevant, which has kinda made me forget my strengths. I need to just bat at my tempo,” Petersen said.

His matchwinning innings in the One-Day Cup final was a telling reminder that in certain conditions and situations, a batter like Petersen is invaluable – having the technique to survive probing bowling on a helpful pitch, the patience to not go too hard, and the strokeplaying skill to still keep the scoreboard ticking over.

Louis Oosthuizen will once again hog the Major limelight amongst South African golfers as he tees off at the Masters on Thursday in one of the feature three-balls, but there are also five other local stars gunning for glory at Augusta.

It will be a Masters unlike any other because not only have spectators been banned due to the Covid-19 pandemic but it is also taking place in winter, far removed from it’s usual slot at the height of spring in April.

Oosthuizen, South Africa’s highest-ranked golfer at No.19 in the world and third in the U.S. Open in September, has been drawn with new sensation Bryson de Chambeau, who won the previous Major, and Spain’s Jon Rahm, who is also one of the favourites to win the famous green jacket.

The 38-year-old Oosthuizen is considered one of the top draws in world golf due to his stellar record in the Majors. He may have won just one – the 2010 Open Championship – but apart from finishing as the runner-up in all four, he has also claimed three other top-10 finishes.

Erik van Rooyen, Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Dylan Frittelli are the other South African golfers within the top-100 in the world rankings who will be playing at Augusta, with Van Rooyen and Bezuidenhout making their Masters debuts.

Van Rooyen told his Twitter followers that he had goosebumps watching videos of Augusta and “cannot wait for the first tee shot”, while Bezuidenhout described it as “a dream come true”.

Justin Harding, on his debut at Augusta, was South Africa’s best finisher in last year’s tournament, his tie for 12^th earning him a place in the 2020 field.

Charl Schwartzel has dropped out of the world top 200 after struggling since his return from a wrist injury, but is in the field thanks to his 2011 Masters triumph.

Trevor Immelman, the 2008 Masters champion, also had an exemption to play, but the South African has decided to be in the television commentary box instead.

Greater Flamingo flying over the Chatty Saltpans

The Swartkops Estuary in Port Elizabeth is well-known as one of South Africa’s 112 Important Bird & Biodiversity Areas (IBAs) and while the river and mudflats have the greatest density of birds and hog the limelight as the most natural areas, my sunset visit on December 30 was to the salt pans and threw up a special that is often difficult to find elsewhere.

The Chatty River flows from the west into the Swartkops River and alongside it, next to the R367 main road, there are commercial saltpans which can provide quality foraging opportunities for many birds, especially when the salinity and water level are just right for a host of invertebrates to be crawling around in the benthos.

The elegant flamingos – both Greater and Lesser – immediately catch the eye and I was also drawn to the Pied Avocets, one of my favourite birds, sweeping and scything around in the water.

But dotted around the pan were smaller birds – the Blacknecked Grebe.

The Chatty Saltpans hold globally significant numbers of this uncommon nomad, which has the propensity to suddenly colonise a flooded area and start breeding. There are usually good numbers of this cute little diving bird at Swartkops though, and I did not notice any birds in breeding plumage, so perhaps they were moulting, with the widely-distributed Blacknecked Grebe known to utilise saline lakes overseas for this purpose.

Another special that can be picked up at the Swartkops Estuary is the Hartlaub’s Gull, which has a recently-established breeding colony in the area. It was previously considered a bird of the Western Cape, its distribution tied to that of Kelp, with only vagrant birds moving east of Cape Agulhas, and it interbreeds with Greyheaded Gulls in this river valley. Being omnivorous, it seems to have adapted to new foraging opportunities around human settlements.

Nicely built-up embankments between the pans allow one to approach the vulnerable Flamingos and their friends reasonably closely as they continue their search for invertebrates, and other birds that have adapted well to man-made wetlands were also busy foraging for their dinner in the gathering gloom – Blackwinged Stilt, African Spoonbill, Cape Cormorant, Kelp Gull, Egyptian Goose, Blacksmith Plover, Cape Wagtail and Sacred Ibis.

Where are the Chatty Saltpans?

Sightings list

Greater Flamingo

Kelp Gull

Pied Avocet

Blacknecked Grebe

Blackwinged Stilt

Lesser Flamingo

Egyptian Goose

Cape Cormorant

Blacksmith Plover

Hartlaub’s Gull

Cape Wagtail

Sacred Ibis

African Spoonbill

Bryce Easton’s highly noticeable yellow floppy hat is at odds with his modest self-effacing personality, but the 25-year-old thrust himself into the limelight with a seven-under-par 65, that included a hole-in-one, on the tougher East Course in the opening round of the Joburg Open at the Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club on Thursday.

Easton’s brilliant round left him one stroke behind the early lead of eight-under-par set by 2008 champion Richard Sterne on the easier West Course, and was one of the main talking points of the morning.

But the lanky Durbanite was still surprised by all the fuss.

“Why do the media want to talk to me? Surely they’re waiting for Charl Schwartzel and Branden Grace?” he said.

While Easton did not drop a stroke and holed his tee-shot on the 167-metre par-three 12th, he said he was not entirely satisfied with his round, having erred too many times for his liking with the driver.

“I missed a few fairways so I still need to figure out the driver a bit, I have some work to do this afternoon. But it’s nice to have a round where you don’t hit the ball so well but you still score well.

Golf’s a funny game, sometimes you hit the ball flush and you don’t score so well,” Easton said.

Easton took a seven-iron on the 12th hole and the ace meant he went away with a million bonus points from the Hilton Hotel group, sponsored by Investec, which translates to about R100 000 of free accommodation.

“It’s my first hole-in-one and you obviously don’t think about it when you’re playing the hole. But then the ball goes in and it takes you a couple of seconds to realise it’s disappeared. It was an awesome feeling and the million Hilton points is a nice bonus,” he said.

It was a great day in the office for the two-time winner on the 2012 Sunshine Tour and there is always the expectation of going lower on the West course at Royal Johannesburg and Kensington. But Easton  will not be taking anything for granted.

“I know the West course a bit better, before today I’d only played a single practice round on the East, but you never know how things will go.”

With 2012 having been a breakthrough year for the 2011 rookie, Easton was asked whether he was targeting the European Tour co-sanctioned events this year.

“Yes, I want to play more consistently and compete more in these bigger events. Last year I had a couple of wins, but I didn’t play so well in these co-sanctioned tournaments,” Easton said.

Having won the Sun City Challenge, eagling the last hole to force a playoff, and the Zebula leg of the Vodacom Origins of Golf two weeks later in 2012, Easton is clearly a golfer whose talent is beginning to bloom.