Kagiso Rabada has been an integral member of the Proteas set up for five years and he still has many years ahead of him to terrorise batsmen and rewrite South Africa’s bowling records. He was a schoolboy phenom who dominated under-19 cricket. But unlike so many who are touted as future greats only to fall away under the pressure of senior professional cricket, Rabada has improved at every level. It’s a rare athlete that gets better as the levels rise and the opposition improves. Right now, the coronavirus pandemic is robbing Kagiso and his teammates’ opportunities to play, but while he stays fit behind closed doors under lockdown, ‘joins us on the Maverick Sports Podcast.

Newly appointed Bulls director of rugby Jake White has a clear vision of turning the franchise into the dominant force in southern hemisphere rugby. With the backing of wealthy owners at Loftus Versfeld, White has the means to see his project through. All he needs now is for the coronavirus pandemic to pass so he can start work in earnest. While he waits to get his hands on the team, he joins the Maverick Sports Podcast to talk about his journey; great moments of joy and despair, and to reminisce about some key incidents in a career that has spanned Himalayan highs and deep lows. White has his critics, but ultimately he has been successful with every team he has coached in a career that has spanned 35 years.

He is the only batsman in cricket history to have made half centuries on debut in all three formats of the game - Tests, One-Day Internationals and T20s – and the only South African to score seven fifties in his first 14 ODI innings’. Rassie van der Dussen has taken the road less travelled to the top of the game. He made his ODI debut at 29 and his Test debut at 30, having ground out a career in the backwaters of local cricket. Unlike prodigies that emerge straight from high school into the national set-up, Van der Dussen took the better part of a decade to find his way onto the international stage, but when he arrived, he showed he belonged.

Chad Le Clos is on track to become South Africa's most successful Olympian of all time if he adds to the four medals he won in London 2012 and Rio 2016, in Tokyo next year. The decorated swimmer has three Olympic silvers, and one gold, which he famously won by ending Michael Phelps’ 10-year unbeaten streak in the 200m butterfly in London eight years ago. Le Clos will be 29 at the postponed Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and admits he is the underdog as a new generation of swimmers emerges. On Today’s Maverick Sports podcast, Le Clos talks about the highs of London, the lows that followed, the scourge of doping and his determination to leave an unprecedented legacy in South African sport.

He has run a successful publishing company, has a Masters degree in creative writing, a law degree, an MBA and has written two novels. But that’s just one piece of John Dobson’s story. In another part of his life he coached UCT to the Varsity Cup title, won a Vodacom Cup and Currie Cup as head coach of Western Province and guided WP’s U-21s to two national titles. He had playing stints in Italy and Portugal and is currently head coach of the Stormers in Super Rugby. His mother still asks when he is going to get a ‘real job’, but Dobson is a self-confessed ‘rugby romantic’ whose deep passion for the game was moulded by a family steeped in rugby. He sees coaching as not only teaching young players how to become better at their jobs and to win matches and titles, but also how to become better human beings.

He has coached South Africa to two World Series titles, a Commonwealth Games’ gold medal and an Olympic bronze medal, but for Blitzbok coach Neil Powell the job is only partly about winning titles. The South Africa sevens programme has become the envy of the world game, where it keeps churning out world-class sevens players every year and setting the tactical standard for the shorter version of the sport. The team had set its sights on Olympic gold in Tokyo this year, but that target has moved after the postponement of the global showpiece to July and August 2021 following the outbreak of the Coronavirus. It will lead to a massive adjustment of the Blitzboks’ preparation time frames but will also give them a chance to evolve even further. Neil joins the Maverick Sports Podcast today, to talk about these and many other issues.

In this episode we hand over the Maverick Sports podcast platform to the biggest issue of our time – perhaps of any time since World War II – Coronavirus. The sporting landscape both locally and internationally has been decimated by cancellations and postponements in recent weeks. The 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo the latest casualty of the global pandemic. On the podcast today is respected journalist and 20 times Comrades Marathon runner Mark Heywood. Mark is a veteran activist who was on the front line in the HIV crisis in South Africa more than a decade ago. He is editor of Maverick Citizen, which is telling vital stories of Coronavirus and more at both a macro and micro level. Once again he finds himself on the front line of a health crisis. As a sports lover Mark understands the impact that Covid-19 is having in that space and helps us unpack it through a wide lens.

The 2020 Masters has been postponed due to coronavirus but this week we turn back the clock to remember one of the great achievers in South African sport. Trevor Immelman has the rare distinction of twice fending off prime Tiger Woods down the stretch in massive golf tournaments. The first was to win the 2006 Western Open on the PGA Tour and the second, most famously, was to claim the 2008 Masters at Augusta National when he was only 28. Immelman’s victory made him the fifth South African to win one of golf’s majors and only the second after Gary Player to claim the Masters’ green jacket. Victory gave him a lifetime membership at Augusta and moved him into a select group of players to have won one of golf’s four elite tournaments. He also won the South African Open twice on his ‘home’ course of Erinvale. After that heady win at Augusta, Immelman’s career hit some bumps through severe injuries and loss of confidence and he never won another professional tournament. Immelman has no regrets though, as he moves into the next phase of his career as an analyst and commentator for the Golf Channel.

Doug Ryder only wanted to be a pro cyclist. He eked out a living trying to fulfil that dream on the cold European winter and autumn circuit in the 1990s and had moderate success. Through those experiences a dream of building an African cycling team that would compete at the elite level started to form. The dream slowly became reality as Ryder banged on the door of the sport with only his vision and passion to sell. He met resistance, mirth and suspicion from cycling’s establishment, and learned some valuable lessons along the way. But he never gave up and today the NTT Pro Cycling Team (formerly Dimension Data) is in the first division of the World Tour. Since its entry to the upper echelons of the sport its riders have won many races, including seven Tour de France stages. It has also given over 80,000 bikes to underprivileged African communities through its Qhubeka Foundation and it continues to grow. Today, Ryder joins the Maverick Sports Podcast to talk about the rise of the little team from Africa, which had no money, to an organisation that employs more than 100 people and has a R255m annual budget.

It’s 42 in 2020 but unlike most 40-year-olds, the Cape Town Cycle Tour shows no signs of decline or of slowing down. The iconic race is now as much a part of South Africa’s sporting landscape as the Comrades Marathon. Its world-class organisation, coupled with unparalleled scenery, makes it a bucket list event for every cyclist and many non-cyclists. With 35000 participants riding a 109km route across the Cape Peninsula, it requires impeccable logistics, planning, cooperation, a little luck and a big sense of humour. Dave Bellairs is one of the dedicated team tasked with bringing all these moving parts together to ensure that the iconic event meets the expectations of first time riders and of those doing the Tour for a 10th time or more. In 2020, there is also the small matter of the Coronavirus outbreak to consider…