Ken Borland

On the sort of day when those unaccustomed to Lowveld heat could have ended up needing medical attention, South Africa’s Ockie Strydom stormed up the leaderboard in the third round of the Alfred Dunhill Championship, his 63 giving him a share of the lead as Scotsman Scott Jamieson stubbornly refused to let first place go.

Strydom ended the second round tied for 21st place on six-under, seven strokes behind Jamieson, but he produced an amazing round, eight birdies and an eagle taking him to 10-under through 15 holes.

He bogeyed the par-three 16th though, three-putting from the far reaches of the green, and then parred his way home to equal the course record set the previous day by Jamieson.

With 15-under now the target, Jamieson got to that mark with three successive birdies from the 11th hole and then ensured he made no mistakes and did not drop any shots coming in.

“I played the same golf as the first two days,” Strydom said as he improved greatly on scores of 68 and 70. “I made a few putts though, I holed a chip, hit my wedges closer and did not take any risks.

“The eagle on two, when I chipped in, was my shot of the day because I was in an impossible spot, short and right of the green, with a steep bunker to clear.

“There were quite tough flags and subtle breaks in the greens, which I saw were running at 13.7 at the start of my round. If they make them any quicker they’re going to kill us, but I managed to hit the ball in the right places.

“I made the right decisions out there and you can’t attack this course, you have to let it come to you, otherwise you’ll be done,” Strydom said.

Jamieson was happy with his performance, as firmer greens made for a tougher day for the 39-year-old. And that’s not mentioning the 35° heat.

“It was a solid day, I’ll take two-under especially after my front nine. As expected it was tougher today, the green speeds were right up. I hit poor shots on four and five that killed my momentum, but to be one-over at the turn was not a disaster,” Jamieson said.

“I knew there would be chances on the back nine and I was able to take three of them in a row. I was really disciplined, there were only two shots I was really not happy about, on four and five. I stuck to my game-plan and eventually got reward. I was proud of myself,” Jamieson said.

Both Strydom and Jamieson believe they have the equipment, both mentally and in terms of ball-striking, to get the job done in Sunday’s final round and claim the biggest victories of their career.

“I will do the same I’ve been doing every day, just play the golf and if it works out then it does, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t,” the phlegmatic Strydom said.

“We are all the same out there, we are all people, no different to each other. They are just names and we will have to see how good they do it in the final round.

“I’ve been there contending quite a few times and I will just keep doing what I’m doing,” Strydom, who has one Sunshine Tour win and 19 runners-up finishes, said.

“The tournament begins on the back nine tomorrow,” Jamieson said. “So far we’ve all just been jockeying for position, but tomorrow the game-plan could change.

“Tomorrow will be all about who plays the best golf and there are some good names up there on the leaderboard. So it’s going to take a good round to win, if I can get to 20-under I will be happy and hopefully that will be good enough. But you can’t control what others do,” Jamieson added.

One of those prime ‘others’ is Dean Burmester (68), who is tied for third alongside fellow South African Oliver Bekker (68) and in-form Englishman Dale Whitnell (66) on 13-under, two behind.

“I’m happy where I’m at. Leading is harder than chasing and Scott Jamieson won once years ago [2013] and Ockie has won once too. We will just have to wait and see what they do in the final round,” Burmester, who won his second DP World Tour title last year in Tenerife and has eight other Sunshine Tour wins, said.

Having grown up in the humid, subtropical climate of Mutare in eastern Zimbabwe, and with the confidence he has gained playing in America, Burmester is unlikely to wilt in the heat.

You can’t buy experience, so the saying goes, and the sort of talent and skill Rilee Rossouw can bring to the Proteas team is also not available in the shops and South Africa captain David Miller said he is delighted to have the left-handed powerhouse back in the squad for the first T20 against England in Bristol on Wednesday night.

The 32-year-old Rossouw is poised to play for the Proteas for the first time since October 2016. The Grey College product, swift of foot and hand, then signed a Kolpak contract with Hampshire and has made his dashing mark in T20 tournaments around the world. He has been especially successful since joining Somerset for this year’s T20 Blast, lashing 623 runs at an average of 47 and a strike-rate of 192.

“It’s great to have Rilee back, we began our professional careers around the same time back in the day,” Miller said on Tuesday. “The team is right behind him, he has immense experience from playing in leagues around the world.

“He’s also spent a few years in England and it’s great to have that local knowledge for this series. He has a good head on his shoulders and he’s a matchwinner.

“He’s a lot stronger since I last played with him. He’s a seriously good player. A very relaxed guy who takes everything in his stride, but really competitive and fiery on the field. I’m really looking forward to playing alongside him again,” Miller said.

With Temba Bavuma unable to take the reins due to his elbow injury, Miller will captain South Africa for the second series, having led for two matches against Pakistan in 2019. The Proteas won that home rubber 2-1, with Miller commanding a largely second-string squad. Only Hendricks, Van der Dussen, Klaasen, Phehlukwayo and Shamsi are still in the picture.

In those games Miller learnt the importance of staying in contact with his bowlers when T20 inevitably gets hectic.

“It can get a little crazy,” Miller admitted. “It’s about having clear plans. You have to learn pretty quickly our there, it’s about knowing what my bowlers are like, what I want and what they want to do.

“It’s about being well-prepared and you have to trust the bowlers to execute their skills, you can’t control everything as a captain. I do have that trust, so it’s just about executing at the right time.

“In the last year-and-a-half, we’ve got our squad together and we’re pretty comfortable. England have a serious team, but us too. It’s about who does the right things at the right time.

“We’ve played some really good cricket lately and we feel confident. We’re definitely taking this series very seriously so we can continue our momentum heading for the World Cup,” Miller said.

The match starts at 7.30pm SA time.

There is no doubt the Bulls players and management crave the sort of pedigree and success in European rugby that Leinster enjoy, and coach Jake White is hoping upsetting the Irish giants in their United Rugby Championship semi-final in Dublin on Friday is the first step on that path.

Leinster have won the European Champions Cup four times, second only to Toulouse (5), and the Pro14 competition (the URC’s predecessor) eight times including the last four tournaments in a row. They also topped the final URC log by six points.

But while it’s obvious how much White respects Leinster, it’s also one of the great joys of sport that hot favourites are sometimes upset by the underdogs in knockout matches. It’s those games the fans live for, and the former World Cup winning coach is hoping Friday night is one of those days for the Bulls.

“Leinster are an incredible team, to put it in perspective, Sean Cronin, their reserve hooker, has played 206 games for them and Jonny Sexton has played 183. Together they have probably played more matches than our entire squad and they are both on the bench.

“We all want to become like Leinster in terms of our structures and we have massive respect for them. Who else has players like Cronin, Sexton, Cian Healy and Ciaran Frawley on the bench?

“Leinster used 60 players in this season’s URC, which is 16 more than us. Those learnings mean you will be so much better next year and after that. For us it’s about building a team over the next couple of years so we can be one of the strongest clubs in world rugby.

“But people follow sport because there’s always a chance, the players believe they can do it and I want them to give it a real crack. We’ve got confidence that on our day we can win,” White said.

For the upset to happen though, it’s going to be crucial for the Bulls to absorb the early blows Leinster, at their formidable RDS Arena, are going to rain down on them.

“We have to start well, Leinster score most of their points in the first 25 minutes,” White said. “It’s very difficult to play catch-up against them, especially at their home ground.

“La Rochelle stayed in the game well in the Champions Cup final a fortnight ago, but the last time we were here, we looked again and we were 15 points down.

“But it will be different this time because we won’t be overawed, we are more controlled now and we have more settled combinations.”

Having bished-and-bashed their way into the last four, there is no pressure on the Bulls, and whatever they get out of Friday night’s game will be a bonus.

“I think we have surpassed everything we were meant to do already,” White said after naming an unchanged starting XV on Thursday. “Now we see if we can live with the best standard of European clubs.”

Bulls: Canan Moodie, David Kriel, Cornal Hendricks, Harold Vorster, Madosh Tambwe, Chris Smith, Zak Burger; Elrigh Louw, Arno Botha, Marcell Coetzee, Ruan Nortje, Walt Steenkamp, Mornay Smith, Johan Grobbelaar, Gerhard Steenekamp. Replacements -Bismarck du Plessis, Simphiwe Matanzima, Robert Hunt, Janko Swanepoel, WJ Steenkamp; Embrose Papier, Morne Steyn, Kurt-Lee Arendse.

South Africa aren’t fielding their usual sort of bowling attack against Bangladesh in the first Test at Kingsmead in Durban, with debutant Lizaad Williams one of just two frontline pacemen alongside Duanne Olivier.

Even at domestic level, one would very seldom see a team fielding just two specialist pace bowlers.

So it’s all a bit of a strange experience for Williams, the 28-year-old playing in his first Test after a journeyman career that has taken off spectacularly since his move to the Titans in 2020.

But he has adapted well and he finished his first innings as a Test bowler with impressive figures of 3/54 in 18.5 overs as Bangladesh were bowled out for 298 on the third day. That gave the Proteas a 69-run first-innings lead, which they extended to 75 by reaching 6/0 in the four overs possible before bad light and rain stopped play.

“We’re two different kinds of bowlers, Duanne gets more bounce while I just try and hit the pitch six-to-seven metres out and the ball squats a bit,” Williams said on Saturday.

“That combination worked well for us but we could have bowled even better. I must say, it is a bit of a weird pitch, both new balls seemed to do a bit less, which is not normal and I don’t know why.

“But in Test cricket not everything is going to be in your favour, but I do still think this is a result pitch.

“I was very delighted to get my first wicket. It was always my dream to play Test cricket, growing up, it was always what I was working towards. It’s your most difficult format and to be able to contribute to my team was great,” Williams said.

Lithe and athletic, with a straight-lines action and the ability to zip the ball around at good pace, the 5’10 Williams certainly has the fast bowling gene. He is slippery, consistently touching the 140km/h mark, and he has the confidence of fine form in domestic cricket to bolster him.

A graduate of the University of the Western Cape, having been schooled at Weston Secondary School and Hugenote Hoerskool, he was born in Vredenburg on October 1, 1993. Having played for Boland Schools for three years, his talent was obvious and he was capped for SA Schools in 2010, from where he made the SA U19 team in 2011 and 2012, also playing in the Junior World Cup.