Maverick Sports

Over the last five years no Test opening batsman has scored more runs than Dean Elgar. The Proteas left-hander has knocked off 3018 runs at an average 40.78 since 2016 and has become an indispensable part of the team. Making runs at the top of the order and seeing off the new ball is a vital skill and Elgar has continued to produce for his team, continuing a post-isolation tradition of gritty opening left-handers that have excelled in the Test arena, after Gary Kirsten and Graeme Smith. Over the coming weeks he will face a new challenge when he opens against Pakistan, in Pakistan. Conditions might suit reverse swing and Elgar will again have his technique and fortitude tested in a new way. As always, he is up for the challenge.

Over the last five years no Test opening batsman has scored more runs than Dean Elgar. The Proteas left-hander has knocked off 3018 runs at an average 40.78 since 2016 and has become an indispensable part of the team. Making runs at the top of the order and seeing off the new ball is a vital skill and Elgar has continued to produce for his team, continuing a post-isolation tradition of gritty opening left-handers that have excelled in the Test arena, after Gary Kirsten and Graeme Smith. Over the coming weeks he will face a new challenge when he opens against Pakistan, in Pakistan. Conditions might suit reverse swing and Elgar will again have his technique and fortitude tested in a new way. As always, he is up for the challenge.

Newly appointed Sunshine Tour Commissioner Thomas Abt has taken over at one of the most precarious times in sporting history. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on sport in general, and on golf in this case, is likely to be profound. The cost of the pandemic might not fully be known for years to come, and Abt will be the person steering South Africa’s professional game through the turbulence. He has two decades of experience in the golfing industry. He started as an assistant golf professional at the Lost City Course at Sun City, before moving to Sports Marketing Company SAIL, where he became head of the golf division. More recently he occupied a dual role as deputy Sunshine Tour Commissioner while still at SAIL, but on 1 October, he moved on a full time basis to the Sunshine Tour. The Sunshine Tour’s motto is: “greatness begins here” and Abt aims to ensure that he and the tour live up to it.

Newly appointed Sunshine Tour Commissioner Thomas Abt has taken over at one of the most precarious times in sporting history. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on sport in general, and on golf in this case, is likely to be profound. The cost of the pandemic might not fully be known for years to come, and Abt will be the person steering South Africa’s professional game through the turbulence. He has two decades of experience in the golfing industry. He started as an assistant golf professional at the Lost City Course at Sun City, before moving to Sports Marketing Company SAIL, where he became head of the golf division. More recently he occupied a dual role as deputy Sunshine Tour Commissioner while still at SAIL, but on 1 October, he moved on a full time basis to the Sunshine Tour. The Sunshine Tour’s motto is: “greatness begins here” and Abt aims to ensure that he and the tour live up to it.

One of rugby’s great myths is that the forwards are always the unthinking, heavy lifters, while the backs have all the brains. It probably comes from a small sample of players back in the sport’s sepia-toned past, but times have changed. Sharks CEO Eduard Coetzee was a prop – and a very good one at that – he played Super Rugby for the Sharks, for South Africa ‘A’ and spent eight years playing in France for Biarritz. He is anything but unthinking or brainless, and as rugby enters a new post-Covid-19 world, the challenges that the game faced before the pandemic ravaged the planet, have been exacerbated by six months of lockdown. Previous business models have to be torn up and re-engineered. For the next few years at least, professional rugby in South Africa and globally too, will be in a precarious position. It will take bold, innovative young leaders such as Coetzee to navigate a way through these turbulent times.