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The chances of this year’s Ashes series in England being seen live on Australian terrestrial television have receded with the news that the ABC is not considering a bid for the rights.The Brisbane Courier-Mail quoted Ian Knight, ABC’s head of television, as saying: “The ABC has to consider the needs of the whole ABC audience. We have to consider regular viewers would be deprived of some shows they have been watching for long periods. Also, we are not a rich organisation and it has been some time since we made a bid for commercial rights on a major sporting event.”Channel 9, who devote a lot of air-time to Australia’s home series, say that the timing of this year’s series is awkward for them: “We have Wimbledon, the AFL and the rugby league to fit in as well, so it is very hard to do justice to it all.”That leaves Channel 7, who broadcast the 2001 Ashes series from England, as the only realistic free-to-air contender – and with pay-TV channel Fox Sports having already purchased the rights and planning to broadcast every ball of the Tests and one-day internationals, it seems unlikely that 7 will make a bid.

One of Zimbabwe cricket’s most respected and dedicated administrators, Peter Keen, died on November 25 at the age of 60 after a long battle with cancer.Keen was a former Zimbabwe Cricket Union board member and chairman of the Mashonaland Country Districts Winter Cricket Association, serving on the committee for about 30 years. Former national wicketkeeper Don Arnott, also a stalwart of Districts cricket, said, "The thing that stands out the most about him was his dedication and his total love of the game."Mr Keen had a degree at the local university and was for years a lecturer at Gwebi Agricultural College not far from Harare, and also Henderson Research Station near Glendale, north of Harare, and these were his contacts with Districts cricket. Gwebi at that time fielded a team in the Lilthurbridge Cup, the Districts competition, although he was a modest player. He later worked for National Foods in Harare.In 1981 he was the liaison officer for the first Young West Indies team to tour Zimbabwe, which was captained by Faoud Bacchus, and he befriended the manager Cammie Smith.The Zimbabwe team wore black armbands in his memory as they took part in the third ODI against West Indies at Harare Sports Club, and both sides observed a minute’s silence before the match.He is survived by his wife, Cathy, and two sons, Gavin and Andrew.

Less than a week ago South Africa were languishing at the foot of the VB Series table. On Friday night, however, Shaun Pollock’s team became the first side to qualify for next week’s finals with a crushing 67-run victory over New Zealand at the WACA in Perth.In winning South Africa picked up their second bonus point of the series, the significance of which is that it makes an already awkward task for Australia back at the WACA on Sunday even more difficult. Despite being hammered on Friday, New Zealand could also reach the finals if Australia fail to take maximum points of South Africa on Sunday.Set 271 to win, New Zealand never really got going after Makhaya Ntini had struck two early blows for South Africa. There was a belligerent 46 from Craig McMillan in the middle of the innings, but New Zealand lost wickets regularly all along the way and South Africa’s 270 for five was at no stage under serious threat.In fact, New Zealand found themselves in the unusual position of having to decide whether it would make sense to pursue the 217 that would have denied South Africa their bonus point. The complication in this equation, of course, is that by allowing the South Africans the extra point, New Zealand have almost certainly given themselves a slightly better chance of reaching the finals at Australia’s expense.Of course, New Zealand would obviously have loved to have been masters of their own fate by beating South Africa and after sending Shaun Pollock’s side in to bat and reducing them to 35 for four, this ambition appeared well within their reach.But, as was the case in Adelaide last Sunday, Jonty Rhodes and Mark Boucher dragged their team back into the match. In Adelaide the pair added 86 for the fifth wicket; this time around then partnership went on to reach 138.It must have been heartbreaking for New Zealand, coming after Dion Nash seemed to have made light of the absence of Shane Bond and Chris Cairns in a devastating seven-over opening burst that brought him three for 20.But Rhodes and Boucher batted with enormous common sense and application to put the innings back together again and the longer the stayed there, the more New Zealand missed Bond and Cairns. Boucher finally went tamely for 58, chipping Chris Harris to midwicket, but then Rhodes moved to only his second one-day century before Shaun Pollock went on the rampage.Boucher was out in the 41st over, allowing the South African captain time to play himself in and survive a chance when Harris dropped a simply catch. It is difficult to recall when a team was last made to pay so dearly and so immediately for a mistake.Pollock was dropped in the 48th over on 27. In the 49th over, bowled by James Franklin, he doubled his score, hitting the left-arm seamer for four successive sixes. The 27 was a record for one-day cricket in Australia and only three off Sanath Jayasuriya’s world record of 30 in an over.And Pollock wasn’t quite finished. He scored 15 more off the final over of the innings to end with 69 off 34 deliveries with six sixes and a four. Rhodes, meanwhile, allowed his captain to get on with it, finishing the innings on 107 not out.It is fair to say that without Rhodes, Pollock might never have been in the position to tee off and it was fitting that the little Natalian earned the man of the match award at the end of the game.South Africa took 72 off the last five overs of their innings and, to all intents and purposes, the match had been snatched away from New Zealand with a suddenness that might have startled even the South Africans. Certainly, the Australians, back in their hotel, would have blinked in astonishment.The stage is set, then, for a titanic clash back at the WACA on Sunday. It is certainly possible that Australia could win – their record against South Africa in important matches will encourage them – but can they earn the all-important bonus point. New Zealand will hope not.

David Townsend and Greg Smith took seven wickets between them as Northerns’overcame the loss of experienced Steve Elworthy to beat Boland by 53 runs.The visitors had been in search of 423 to win after Northerns declared theirsecond innings closed on 343 for four. Boland were dismissed for 132 intheir first innings, to which Northerns replied with 211.The win puts Northerns on top in Group A on 56 points, followed on 51 points by Free State and Boland, on 38.Elworthy was ruled out with flu, but Townsend and Smith stepped into thebreach to take four for 116 and three for 99 respectively.Twenty-year-old Boland opener Henry Davids batted with impressive confidenceand raced to his century off 114 deliveries, an astonishing feat consideringhe was on his Supersport Series debut.Davids lost his opening partner, James Henderson, early on. But a resoluteLouis Koen joined him and the second wicket-pair wrested the initiative fromthe Northerns bowlers in steering their team to 190 for one at lunch.After the break the left-arm spinner, Nigel Brouwers, tied Boland down andeventually had Davids stumped by Kruger van Wyk for 124. He was at thecrease for four hours, faced 190 balls and hit 20 fours.As was the case on Saturday, Boland lost two more wickets in quicksuccession and suddenly looked in trouble on 207 for four.Left-arm paceman Smith, who until that stage had nothing go his way, removedPiet Barnard for nought and Justin Ontong for one.Nineten-year-old Jonathan Trott joined Koen at the wicket and his patiencehelped him steady the ship. But in the absence of Elworthy someone else hadto something special and that player turned out to be swing bowler Townsend.His first victim was Trott, who was caught behind. Next to go was thecourageous Koen.He fell three runs short of a well-deserved century after steering a Townsend away-swinger to Martin van Jaarsveld at second slip. His departure left Boland perilously placed on 292 for six with precious little batting to come.Brad Player didn’t last long before he also got a faint touch to a Townsenddelivery and was caught behind. Charl Langeveldt only managed four runsbefore Townsend brought his effort to an abrupt end.Steven Palframan hung on valiantly and scored 46 valuable runs until Smithcastled him.With Boland on 347 for nine, tailender Andrew Pringle eked out 27 runs. Yethis departure was inevitable and it was perhaps fitting that the homecaptain, Gerald Dros, claimed the final scalp.

Gabriel Jesus’ future at Arsenal is in doubt as the club continue to evolve their attacking options under Mikel Arteta.

Jesus returns to fitness as Berta eyes new signings

Jesus has played an important role since joining from Manchester City, but competition for places and injuries have reduced the Brazilian’s role.

The signing of Viktor Gyokeres has pushed Jesus out of his preferred central striker role, and while the 28 year-old has recently returned to fitness to make his 100th appearance fo the club, Arsenal may see value in selling him at the right time, while Jesus will not want to play a minor role in a World Cup year.

“He’s very fit. We’ve been gradually increasing his minutes,” Mikel Arteta said after the Gunners’ Carabao Cup penalty-shootout triumph over Crystal Palace on Tuesday night.

“But [against Palace] as long as he was OK, everybody was happy to let him go on. When we get into fatigue mode, we took him off, but we’re very happy.”

Arsenal are expected to dip into the transfer market to strengthen their options in January, and a new forward signing could come at the cost of their current number nine.

Arsenal could sell Jesus to sign Semenyo

That is according to ex-Everton, Aston Villa, and Aberdeen chief executive Keith Wyness, who told Football Insider Antoine Semenyo could ditch his proposed move to Manchester City if Arsenal clear a role for him.

Jesus is one of Arsenal’s highest earners on £265,000-a-week, and while reports suggest Semenyo has already turned down a large contract off from Tottenham, the Bournemouth star would likely command lower wages than Arsenal’s current number nine.

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With a release clause of £65m which will become active in January, Semenyo, who Pep Guardiola has called “extraordinary” and “unbelievable”, is set to be the most in demand player of the winter transfer window.

India’s limited-overs captain MS Dhoni is pleased with the positives that have come out of the tour of Australia where the visitors lost the first four ODIs before coming back to win the final ODI and all three Twenty20 internationals. In a season where India will now play only T20 cricket till the home World T20 and the IPL, Dhoni feels he might have found a settled bowling unit, a feeling he rarely experiences, and a lot of it is down to the newcomer Jasprit Bumrah, who incidentally would not have made it to the side but for two injuries.While Dhoni expectedly downplayed the T20 whitewash, he went out of his way to praise Bumrah. “The find [of the tour] for me was Bumrah,” Dhoni said. “The way he has bowled in the last three games was really good. What looks good is Bumrah as a potential player. He’s looking really good, and even today he bowled the yorkers well. And I’ve always said that to be successful in the shorter format you have to execute the yorkers. Whether you choose to bowl it or not is up to you, but if you don’t have that option, then definitely at some point of time, you will be under pressure.”For once Dhoni made a bold declaration – some might say he is tempting fate – that he need not worry about about the bowling too much. “I am always worried about the bowling, especially when we go out of India, but now that we are playing only T20s for a consistent period of time, the bowling is looking settled,” Dhoni said. “I don’t have to worry about the bowling line-up. There might be one or two changes here or there: we might pick another spinner or maybe get a medium-fast bowler of a quick, but overall it has been a good set-up.”Dhoni said it was a conscious decision to look at new bowlers after having yielded similar results by persisting with the old ones. “We wanted to try different people because we have been trying the same few individuals and getting the same result,” Dhoni said. “So it was high time we gave chances to individuals who were doing well in the domestic circuit, and to see what really they have to offer.”And at the same time, once they play over here and go back, they at least know what are the departments they need to work on. Because there’s a lot of difference between our first-class cricket and international cricket. The gap is quite wide between them. So now at least with a few games here, a bit of practice with the Indian team and the bowling coaches, at least once they go back, they know what needs to be done. I think a lot of them will have to field really hard, they’ll have to push themselves to improve their fielding. And as far as just the talent is concerned, there were quite a few people who looked good.”A settled bowling attack to go with a top order in prodigious form and the benefit of home conditions and crowds will make India a formidable team in the World T20. Dhoni paid tribute to the consistency of his main batsmen. “I feel that it is difficult to follow up a big performance, like a score of 100 or 80, with another big performance,” Dhoni said. “What has been good in this series is how the top order has consistently performed. It is very difficult.”When you are scoring lots of runs you get a lot of confidence, but at the same time, there comes a time when you put that extra pressure on yourself too. You may think that the law of averages will strike at some point. But they have carried it through the whole series, they always gave us a very good start. And it was always the top order.”If you talk about five, six, seven and the lower-down batsmen, apart from that one game [Canberra ODI], we were just doing the sweeping job of playing 10-12 deliveries, or 15 deliveries maximum. The top order did really well in this tournament for us.”

Ricky Ponting is the most marketable sporting figure in Australia and five of the top ten sponsorship favourites come from cricket, according to a research report. Ponting has become used to life at the top during his career and beat a field including the swimmers Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett and the footballer Harry Kewell.The Sweeney Sports report, which measured how suitable 70 sportspeople were to endorse brands and organisations, had Ponting first, Adam Gilchrist seoncd and Brett Lee fifth – he was tied with Hackett. The retired duo of Glenn McGrath and Steve Waugh were equal seventh while Shane Warne was 16th. Andrew Symonds improved to 23rd alongside the boxer Kostya Tszyu and footballer Tim Cahill.”The biggest increase in popularity during the past year has been recorded by Andrew Symonds, who sprung from equal 58th position last year,” the Sweeney Sports general manager Todd Deacon said. “Warne’s ranking during his career has see-sawed depending on off-field scandals.”A largely scandal-free year has meant a high ranking, but negative events have tended to send his ranking plummeting.” His final position was up almost a year after retiring.

Jacques Kallis backed his years of experience to guide South Africa through a tough run chase on the third day at Cape Town. He and Ashwell Prince added 117 to carry their side to a five-wicket win, which secured the series 2-1.”Sometimes you get more pleasure out of knocks like this than getting a hundred,” he said, “because it played a big role in winning the game for South Africa which to me is more important than getting a hundred.”They put us under a lot of pressure and we just had to absorb it. But there is no way you can carry on doing it all day and there had to come a period where they would crack and perhaps start trying a few things. It happened after lunch and once we got the momentum things became a lot easier.”There was some vociferous appealing, particularly early in the day, and at one stage umpires Peter Parker and Steve Bucknor spoke to Pakistan’s acting captain Younis Khan, warning the players to “keep down the banter”.”It was nothing out of the ordinary,” said Kallis. “It was a hard series. It was hard cricket and there were tense moments but that’s what Test cricket is about. It’s what our guys like and it brings the best out of quite a few of our players.”Graeme Smith was grateful to Kallis after he was one of Mohammad Asif’s two early wickets, which left South Africa 39 for 4 chasing 161. “On a wicket like this it is where your big pressure players come to the party and make the impact that’s needed.”He was also quick to credit Pakistan for their part a highly competitive series: “They [Pakistan] performed very well. On all their trips to South Africa these wickets probably were the closest to what they’ve got back home. They made life difficult for us.”

Sri Lanka are expected to arrive in Dhaka on February 17, ten days ahead of the original schedule, to play three one-day internationals and two Tests against Bangladesh.A Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) source said that a fresh itinerary would be announced soon.SLC asked the BCB to bring forward Sri Lanka’s first tour to the country following the postponement of Asia Cup.

ScorecardQueensland raced to the top of the table with a 168-run victory over Tasmania at Bellerive Oval. Tasmania required 340 for victory but could manage only 171. James Hopes starred with the ball, claiming 4 for 39 to supplement his first-innings 97 off 81 balls.David Dawson stood out with his 38, the highest score of Queensland’s innings. The bowlers struck regularly, allowing no batsman to build on his start. But the building blocks of Queensland’s success had been constructed a day earlier, when Jimmy Maher struck 170 out of 271, setting Tasmania a target of 340.