Videos » Monday, when the Panthers forced Fresno State into 18

For 21 years South African cricket fans lived in a twilight world of implausible allegiances. They supported Manchester United or Spurs, Wales when they played rugby. Some went the other way, giving the traditional New Years fixture between Western Province and Transvaal at Newlands a cachet it probably didnt deserve.Some of us - count me in this group - invented traditions and affiliations on the flimsiest evidence. Embarrassing as it now sounds, I supported Mike Gattings England as they romped through Australia in 1986-87, because I was born in Hendon, a suburb in north-west London.A year later, huddling around a small black-and-white Philips television set, I watched Will Carlings England defeat Australia 28-19 at Twickenham. A South African cricketing alternative wasnt yet in sight, and so I cheered when Simon Halliday scored Englands victory-clenching try. I had to support someone. What else was there to do?At the time I lived in a post-graduate digs in Cape Town, nursing my bursary with exaggerated care. Most mornings I went out onto the balcony of our flat to look at the harbour, where nothing much was going on. Once a week a big white Safmarine container vessel from Hamburg or Southampton moored in port, but for the most part the basin was dead, save for the trawler fleet and the odd careworn freighter.Squeezed tight by the trade, cultural and sporting boycott, Cape Town was not the chichi paradise it has become. If anything, the sleep from which it suffered seemed to be getting deeper. This was no place for an adventurous young man.Three years later I was living in London, stringing for a leftie South African weekly. They asked me to cover a match at Lords between a Transvaal Invitation XI and the MCC. The visitors were a good young side, but there was something vaguely clandestine about it all. Lords was empty that chilly midweek day, the concessions closed. The contest was devoid of tradition or large meaning. Cricket on the moon.A left-arm seamer called Graham Yates had Mike Atherton caught and bowled, and a young prodigy called Victor Vermeulen - later to tragically break his neck diving into a swimming pool - caught the eye.With Gattings ill-conceived rebel tour to South Africa a thing of the past, much of the cricket-loving world was waiting to see if South Africa would be readmitted to the ICC. It was surely too much to ask that they might also sneak into the 1992 World Cup.A couple of heady months later I discovered that the problem for a homesick South African adrift in London was that there was nowhere to watch your team when they were miraculously readmitted to the world game. The lightning 1991 tour to India had come, and gone and in search of World Cup cricket from Australasia, I pounded the Kilburn High Road, finding nothing but camping shops and dingy Irish pubs. Surely one of them would show cricket? Cold and tired, eventually I found one, dragging my girlfriend inside. We nursed our beers and watched, aghast, as New Zealands Gavin Larsen and Chris Harris tied us up in knots. It was a hopeless case, an excruciating comedown after the magic of beating Australia in South Africas opening World Cup game at the SCG.The best thing about the 92 World Cup was the overwhelming sense of gratitude. People were so happy that they cried. Steve Tshwete, the minister of sport elect, cried on Kepler Wessels shoulder in the SCG dressing room, while Kepler cried himself. Ali Bacher cried. People you wouldnt have thought of as criers had a good blub.One Sunday afternoon two years later, walking on the turf at Lords after South Africa had won the first Test by 356 runs, I cried. They were vaguely embarrassed, private tears but the game had been so emotional, so memorable - Fanie de Villiers torturing Craig White, Jonty Rhodes swatting Angus Fraser into the Mound Stand for six - that I didnt know what else to do. We were back. It aroused emotions too subtle and rare to name.Later during that series I watched the best innings Ive ever seen from a South African in the post-readmission period: Daryll Cullinans 94 in a losing cause at The Oval. After Lords, the teams went to Headingley, where Peter Kirsten and Graeme Hick scored tons in a drawn Test. Back in London, de Villiers, the hero of Sydney earlier that year, was foolish enough to hit Devon Malcolm square on the helmet. You guys are going to pay for this, Malcolm is reputed to have said. You guys are history.With four ducks and six single-figure scores, Malcolm gutted the South African second innings. Riding the steep bounce with courage and delicacy, only Cullinan stood firm. Some South Africans jabbed their bat down on yorkers after they were bowled; the top order scuttled back to the pavilion like the three blind mice. Cullinan was last out to Darren Gough, England galloping home by eight wickets on the fourth day to square the series.The next time South Africa played England was in Centurion, the ground close to the Jukskei River and a magnet for rain. A debut went in that first Test to Shaun Pollock, a rangy fast bowler, who, when he batted, hit the ball with careless aplomb.A year later a South Africa cap was given to Herschelle Gibbs at Eden Gardens in Kolkata. There have been more important players for South Africa in the last 25 years - Jacques Kallis grim charm, Makhaya Ntinis unflagging energy - but no two players pleased the aesthetes through the nineties and across the cusp of the fresh decade like Pollock and Gibbs.Behind this all, a darker current. On that very tour of India in 1996-97, Bacher foisted the Mohinder Armanath benefit game on a weary party at the end of the tour. The players were furious and eager to get home. Their flirtation with the possibility of throwing that game came to fruition on their next tour to India, where Hansie Cronje seduced Gibbs and others to underperform in the five-match ODI series, besmirching the sport.Until a revisionist history of the world game in the 1990s is published, well never know quite how rife match-fixing was. It is safe to say, however, that other boards handled their scandals entirely differently.On the field itself, a theme was taking shape. South Africa were losing or drawing Tests at home they might have been expected to win, while they were winning away when they might reasonably have been expected to lose. Pollock came to the fore in taking five for 37 against Pakistan in Faisalabad in 1997 (Pat Symcox scoring 55, 81, and taking 3 for 8 in the Pakistan second innings) as the hosts couldnt manage the 145 needed for victory. In 2000, Cronjes men won Tests in Mumbai (with a largely pace attack) and Bangalore. Tests were later won in Karachi (2007) in a victorious series, as well as in Ahmedabad and Nagpur on consecutive drawn series in India.South Africa have always been handy at winning away and the golden period was forged when Graeme Smith and Mickey Arthur managed to cocoon the side from increasingly dogged political interference to win back to back away series in England and Australia across six months in 2008. There have been big series wins (take the 5-0 drubbing of West Indies in 1998-99) but no more cherished prize sits on the mantelpiece of the South African game.For all the moments of magic - who will ever forget de Villiers, legs akimbo, tossing the Glenn McGrath lob into the air in 1994? - South African cricket is a protean, difficult-to-understand beast, with an almost perverse ability to confound. How, for example, can a side as well-rounded as the 1999 team to the World Cup in England contrive to lose it? Perhaps Winston Churchills famous quote about Russia brings us closer to understanding. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, but perhaps there is a key. In South Africas case that key is surely to be found in an increasingly settled country, less at odds with itself than it once was. We live in hope. Replica Shoes . "Thank you for the warm welcome," Beckham said on an 80-degree February morning. In this case, it was soccer weather. The sport moved a step closer to returning to South Florida on Wednesday, when Beckham confirmed he has exercised his option to purchase a Major League Soccer expansion franchise in Miami. Fake Shoes From China . - After leading the Saints to a fourth playoff appearance in five seasons, Drew Brees expressed confidence in the direction of his team and, perhaps more importantly, showed a willingness to listen to contract proposals if the team needs his help getting under the NFLs salary cap. https://www.fakeshoes.net/wholesake-fake-air-jordan-1-f139.html . Collaros, 25, was solid last season, posting a 5-2 record as the starter while incumbent Ricky Ray was injured. Collaros also started Torontos 23-20 regular-season finale loss to Montreal — Ray didnt dress because the Argos had already clinched first in the East Division — but was one of three quarterbacks to play that day. Fake Shoes . -- There were a lot of firsts for the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday night. Fake Nike Shoes . The 29-year-old Baines has established himself as one of the top attacking full backs in the country and was the subject of two bids from United during the last off-season. Everton manager Roberto Martinez says that keeping Baines at the club is a "massive boost and exciting for the future" because he brings "maturity and football knowledge in a very specialized position on the pitch" and an "infectious and positive influence to the rest of the squad. Saint Marys coach Randy Bennett wants to get a better look at his bench players, and he might get that opportunity when the 17th-ranked Gaels host Prairie View A&M on Wednesday (10 p.m. ET) in Moraga, Calif.In the Gaels season-opening 81-63 victory over Nevada, Saint Marys all-conference guards James Rahon and Emmett Naar played extensively, with Rahon logging 40 minutes and Naar 35.Tonight I wasnt as trusting with our bench, Bennett said after the game. I rode Joe. We need to get Joe and Emmett some breaks.Rahon and Naar combined for 17 points, 16 assists and just two turnovers in the opener. However, the coach knows he will need more depth as the Gaels prepare for Saturdays game at Dayton. That road game against a Flyers team picked to win the Atlantic 10 will indicate whether Saint Marys is worthy of its national ranking.Certainly Naar and Rahon will be in the starting lineup against Prairie View (1-1), but it remains to be seen whether Jock Landale or Dane Pineau will get the start.Pineau, a preseason all-conference selection who started all 35 games last season, has been bothered by back problems that caused him to miss practice time.Of the six weeks of preseason, he practiced maybe two, Bennett said.As a result, 6-foot-11 junior Landale got his first career start against Nevada and responded with career highs in points (33) and rebounds (nine). Pineau played just 12 minutes off the bench, and Bennett said afterward he has not determined his starting lineup for future games.Landale was particularly effective in the low post, and teams are reluctant to double team him because of the Gaels ability to hit 3-pointers.If they double, I just kick it out, Landale said. Three is better than two.Prairie View A&M may present a bigger challenge than expected, considering it pulled off a surprising 84-78 victory at Fresno State on Monday.The Panthers traditionally play a difficult, road-dominated nonconference schedule. It is no different this season. Prrairie View A&Ms first four games and 11 of its first 13 are on the road.dddddddddddd The season is beginning with a three-game West Coast swing, which started Friday with a 78-58 loss to Oregon State and continued with the Monday upset of Fresno State.The Panthers, who were picked by the coaches to finish sixth in the 10-team Southwestern Athletic Conference, are operating under a new head coach, Byron Smith.Smith took over on an interim basis last January, when Bryon Rimm resigned with Prairie View owning a 1-18 record. Smith was elevated from his assistant position for the final 12 games, and the team went 6-6. He was officially named head coach in April.Smiths focus is on the defensive end, and that was demonstrated Monday, when the Panthers forced Fresno State into 18 turnovers.We have some athletic guys, some long guys that can jam the basketball, that pressure the basketball and get out and play and let our defense dictate our offense, Smith said.The Panthers starting lineup against Oregon State consisted of four junior-college transfers and Daquan Cook, a transfer from UNLV who is probably the teams best offensive player. He led the Panthers with 14 points on 5-of-14 shooting against the Beavers, and he scored 17 points on 4-for-11 shooting against Fresno State. His final free throw Monday gave the Panthers a 12-point lead with 43 seconds left.Daquan did a really good job offensively, Smith said after Cook scored 18 points in the Panthers 101-40 exhibition victory over Champion Christian last week. I believe our offense will grow, but Im a defensive guy. I really want to establish our defense and rebounding as we get ready to go into a really tough four-game stretch.Their defense will get a major challenge against Saint Marys, which shot 60 percent from the field and committed just six turnovers against Nevada. ' ' '