Johannesburg  - Football fans applied for over 1.6 million tickets for the 2010 football World Cup in South Africa in the first phase of ticket sales that ended Tuesday night, world football body FIFA announced Wednesday.

The biggest chunk of the 1,635,136 applications - 30 per cent - came from the host nation, followed by the US, the UK, Germany, Italy and Australia, FIFA said in a statement. Some 740,000 tickets were up for grabs.

Durban, Apr 1 : The Indian Premier League going to be held in South Africa will mainly be a television product for the Indian market and the crowd attendances will be no more than a bonus, according to a former cricket administrator.

Arthur Turner says that hosting of IPL in South Africa is not a coup for the country as the tournament was shifted out of India due to security reasons.

Johannesburg (South Africa), Apr. 1 : A horrifying investigative film has exposed how prisoners in President Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe are dying from either disease or hunger.

The documentary, shown last night on South Africa''s state broadcaster SABC, documented the "living hell" for prisoners across 55 state institutions.

"Hell Hole", as the film is titled, is a grim account of a crisis in which dozens of inmates die each day, reports The Times.

Durban (South Africa), Apr. 1 : Australia's cricketers undertook a fishing trip in the South African coastal city of Durban ahead of their first one-day international against the Proteas here.

Victorian skipper Cameron White was among those on the fishing trip, while some members of the 14-man squad, including national captain Ricky Ponting and West Australian skipper Marcus North, decided to play golf instead.

Johannesburg - South African police have arrested a man after discovering the carcasses of lions and rhinoceroses strewn around a house in the capital, Pretoria, local media reported Wednesday.

Police were tipped off by the Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals after an inspector stumbled across the bones at the residence in the upmarket Waterkloof suburb, the South African Press Association reported.

Many diplomatic residences and an air force base are located in Waterkloof.

Durban (South Africa), Apr. 1 : Carpenter and pace bowler Ben Laughlin is hoping to make his one-day international debut some time in April in South Africa.

Just a year ago, the Melbourne-born Queenslander was ready to give up on his hopes of playing state cricket.

“I had a decent grade summer (in Brisbane in 2007-08) and I didn''t really feel like I was getting anywhere,'''' Laughlin said ahead of Friday''s opening ODI match against South Africa.