Wednesday morning sports wrap
Here's a wrap of the latest sports news from Mak Dlamini.
Cricket
The Proteas have begun their preparations for their one day series with Srilanka starting on 20 July. South Africa are busy contesting Sri Lanka President's 11 in Colombo.
Meanwhile the Ashes Test series between England and Australia will resume with the second Test starting at Lords tomorrow. England lead the series 1-0.
Soccer
Amazulu will play hosts to Manchester City in the Nelson Mandela Invitational on Thursday evening. African football player of the year Yaya Toure says "he has always loved playing against African opposition". Moses Mabhida will host tomorrow's showpiece. Kickoff will be at 8pm.
Cosafa Cup action resumes today in Zambia, It's the business end of the Southern Hemisphere showpiece. The Levy Mwanawasa stadium will host the double header. The Zimbabwe, Lesotho semifinal will get the proceedings underway, then South Africa will lock horns with the hosts. The match is scheduled to get underway at 8pm. Bafana are aiming for their fourth title in the tournament.
Moving abroad, PSG have signed Edinson Cavani for a record breaking Ligue 1 fee of 64 million euros from Napoli. Cavani, who finished as the leading goal scorer in the Serie A with 29 goals has agreed to a five year deal with the French Champions.
Sunderland have landed Giaccherini from Juventus for six and a half million pounds, the Italian international has signed a four yeal deal with the English side. Meanwhile Arsenal and Chelsea will see pre-season action today.
The gunners take on Vietnam and the Blues clash with the Singha all stars who beat Manchester United a couple of days ago, action will get underway from 1:55 onwards this afternoon.
Rugby
Jaco Peyper will take charge of the first Super Rugby qualifier between the Crusaders and the Reds, the match will take place at 9:35 on Saturday morning in Christchurch, meanwhile the semifinals kickoff times have been announced.
The Vodacom Blue Bulls and the Chiefs have secured home semifinals.
The showdown at the Waikato Stadium in Hamilton is scheduled to start at 09h35 in the morning on 27 July, while the clash at Loftus Versfeld will kickoff at 17h05 on the same day.
Golf
The Open Championship gets underway tomorrow at the llinks course at Muirfield. Louis Ooisthuisen will be lining up alongside world number one Tiger Woods.
Athletics
Injury has ruled out Yohan Blake out of the next month's World Athletics Championships in Moscow. The Jamaican sprinter is nursing a hamstring injury.
Cycling
Stage 17 of tour de France gets underway today. Rui Costa won yesterdays stage, while Chris Froome still holds the yellow jersey. He leads by four minutes and 14 seconds.
(File photo: Gallo Images)
- Mak Dlamini
Twitter - @ECRSportswave