The Titans chased 238 off 65 overs for victory at Supersport Park on Sunday after Mark Boucher had declared the Eagles innings closed on 384 for seven, but the match petered out to a draw. Goolam Bodi and Zander de Bruyn took the game by the scruff of the neck to put on 120 for the third wicket.

The Eagles and the Dolphins played to a dreary draw at Goodyear Park in Bloemfontein on Sunday after the Dolphins’ first innings came to a close one hour after the lunch break on the last day. Young Dolphins batsman Ashraf Mall attained his maiden first-class 100 as well as his first double 100.

World XI skipper Ricky Ponting won the toss on Monday and decided to bat in the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) tsunami-appeal fund-raising match against an Asian XI. Ponting is one of five Australians in the World XI, which also includes West Indies batsman Brian Lara and New Zealanders Stephen Fleming, Chris Cairns and Daniel Vettori.

Cricket provided the spectacle and the fund-raising vehicle as Ricky Ponting’s World XI beat an Asian XI by 112 runs on Monday in a benefit match that generated Aus,6-million (R66,3-million) for the tsunami relief fund. Ponting stroked 115, New Zealand all-rounder Chris Cairns smashed 69 off 47 balls and West Indian Brian Lara hit 52.

In a rare meeting of artistic licence and creative accountancy, France’s most successful actor, Gérard Depardieu, is this week due to be questioned by fraud investigators about his links with a disgraced tycoon said to be hiding in Britain after his empire collapsed, leaving 14 000 people jobless.

As Palestinians go to the polls on Sunday to elect a successor to Yasser Arafat, senior members of Hamas have revealed that a long-term ceasefire may well follow. The revelation follows a major escalation in the Hamas campaign of firing missiles at Israeli targets in and around the Gaza Strip.