Royals unbeaten

A SUPERBLY calculated unbeaten 79 in 53 balls by Steve Smith gave the Rajasthan Royals victory by seven wickets over the Mumbai Indians in Motera last night. The Royals have won all three of their matches and go top of the table, while Mumbai registered their third defeat in a row. Batting first, Mumbai scored 164/5 thanks to Kieron Pollard’s explosive 70 in 34 balls, but it wasn’t enough as Smith guided the Royals home with five balls to spare. – Sports Reporter

Kamlesh Gosai TWO more world championship qualifying times were achieved on the second day of the South African National long course championships at King’s Park last night.

Local star Chad le Clos and Northerns swimmer Cameron van der Burgh managed to dip under the qualifying mark that secures their entry to the Fina World Championships in Russia from August 2-9.

Van der Burgh improved on the qualifying time (1:00.30) he reached in the 100m breaststroke semi-finals when he clocked 59.78 in last night’s final. He comfortably beat Northerns teammate Marko Visser and home swimmer Ayrton Sweeney.

Le Clos danced a celebratory jig poolside after he made the B-qualifying time in the 200m freestyle semi-finals with his effort of 1:47.93.

Tonight he will be aiming to beat the A-qualifying time of 1:46.98 in the finals, but he will have fellow local swimmers Myles Brown and Sebastien Rousseau pushing him for the national title.

“I think Myles will be faster tomorrow; he’ll be the favourite,” said Le Clos.

“The final should be a second or so faster. I went out way too slow and I was panicking a bit in my first race. But I’ve had a really good 12 weeks to train and I’m in a good place.”

Another local, Erin Gallagher, 16, finished just short of qualifying in the youth category when she clocked 25.93 to win the 50m freestyle ahead of WP’s Trudi Maree and KZN’s Emma Forbes-Milne.

Veteran Olympian Roland Schoeman, 34, defended his national 50m butterfly title with a time of 23.69, ahead of fellow Northerns teammates Nico Meyer and Ryan Coetzee.

This is Schoeman’s 18th national championships, and he is bidding to end his career with another Olympics in Rio next year.