South African batsman Herschelle Gibbs is likely to be questioned by Indian police over a 2000 match-fixing scandal during the Champion’s Trophy which starts on Saturday, officials said. The 32-year-old, who has played 79 Tests, had admitted accepting money from disgraced former captain Hansie Cronje to score fewer than 20 runs against India.
In Bosnia’s Valley of the Pyramids, only one man is king. Semir Osmanagic, new-age philosopher and amateur archaeologist, splits his time between Texas and Sarajevo, but these days is mostly to be found scraping away at a hillside 40 minutes north of the Bosnian capital.
Fashion-conscious university students in northern Japan are being offered money to do away with their dyed hair and body piercings as part of a drive to tackle falling standards of behaviour. This month Akita Keizaihoka University and an affiliated vocational college introduced a ban on ”unusual” hairstyles and colourings, as well as pierced earrings and body piercings.
The West Indies will have more than damaged pride to play for when they open the defence of their ICC Champions Trophy with an unwanted qualifying match against Zimbabwe in Ahmedabad on Sunday. The two-times world champions have been in decline since the mid-1990s and Brian Lara’s side will need to show a marked improvement in form.
A year ago, Sri Lankan cricket was in crisis with their young players hampered by fragile confidence, dressing room disunity, selection squabbles and political problems within the national board. However, their fortunes have been revived under new captain Mahela Jayawardene, who has led from the front in recent months with a glut of runs and moulded the team into a united force.
A French lawyer is to contest Zinedine Zidane’s World Cup final red card in the French civil courts, a court source said on Wednesday. Mehana Mouhou, a lawyer in Rouen and Paris, wants the red card overturned on a technicality because he claims the fourth official watched video evidence of the French captain’s infamous head-butt on Italy defender Marco Materazzi, before bringing it to the referee’s attention.
Somalia’s radical Islamic militia has advanced to within 20km of the only town controlled by the government, the closest the fighters have gotten to the fragile administration’s headquarters, an Islamic official. The militia, which has seized much of southern Somalia since taking over the capital, Mogadishu, in June, reached Moode Moode on Tuesday night.
South Africa’s chances of qualifying for the 2008 African Nations Cup finals will take a serious nosedive if they lose in Zambia on Sunday. Defeat would leave the 2010 World Cup hosts five points behind Group 11 leaders Zambia with four matches to play.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, South Africa’s voice of conscience during apartheid, is once more at odds with authority over the moral direction of the country as he approaches his 75th birthday. Ten years on from his retirement as archbishop of Cape Town, the indefatigable cleric has lost none of his ability to make those in power squirm as he points out their shortcomings.
Google is introducing a new search service — strictly for computer programmers only. The web search leader said late on Wednesday it is introducing Google Code Search, a site that simplifies how software developers search for programming code to improve existing software or create new programs.