Latest - Manchester City reached their fourth straight English League Cup final as goals from John Stones and Fernandinho gave Pep Guardiola's side a 2-0 win over Manchester United in their semi-final at Old Trafford.
Fernandinho Photo: PHOTOSPORT
City will meet Jose Mourinho's Tottenham Hotspur at Wembley in the April 25 final.
In a frantic opening to the game, both teams had efforts ruled out for offside and Kevin De Bruyne struck the post before Phil Foden also put the ball in the net for City but it was ruled out for offside.
City went ahead five minutes after the break when defender Stones bundled a cross home at the back post, the ball going in off his thigh.
Fernandinho made sure of the win seven minutes from time with a stunning volley as he pounced on a headed clearance from Aaron Wan-Bissaka.
United have now lost at the semi-final stage in their last four Cup campaigns, leaving manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer still searching for his first final since taking over at the club.
-Reuters
Al-Attiyah wins another stage
Qatar's triple champion Nasser Al-Attiyah took his third stage win in a row at the Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia to chip away at Stephane Peterhansel's overall lead.
The Toyota driver ended the fourth day of action four minutes and 58 seconds adrift of Peterhansel, the veteran 'Mr Dakar' who has won the event a record 13 times on two wheels and four but has yet to take a stage this year.
Photo: PHOTOSPORT
Despite his speed, Al-Attiyah clawed back only 11 seconds from the consistent X-Raid Mini driver who finished second on the 337km stage from Wadi Ad-Dawasir north to the Saudi capital Riyadh.
Spaniard Carlos Sainz, Peterhansel's Mini team mate and the defending champion, climbed back to third overall but 36 minutes off the lead.
Nine-times world rally champion Sebastien Loeb was fourth, another 12 minutes behind.
In the motorbike category, France's Xavier de Soultrait took the lead for Husqvarna with Spaniard Joan Barreda 15 seconds behind after winning the stage.
Russian Dmitry Sotnikov, in a Kamaz, took his third stage win in the truck category to extend his lead.
-Reuters
Cricketers pass Covid tests
England's touring party in Sri Lanka have passed coronavirus tests having been retested after all-rounder Moeen Ali's positive result on Monday.
All of the players and staff had a lateral flow test and PCR at England's base in Hambantota.
Moeen tested positive on arrival in Sri Lanka and is isolating for 10 days at the team hotel in Hambantota.
Fellow all-rounder Chris Woakes was deemed as a possible close contact, having shared a car to the airport with Moeen in the UK. He tested negative but will continue to isolate in his room.
Meanwhile, BBC Sport has learned Sri Lanka, who lost the second Test against South Africa in Johannesburg on Tuesday, will not face a 10-day quarantine period upon their return to the country.
They will fly back on a chartered flight and, as they are transferring from one bio-secure bubble to another, a quarantine period has been deemed unnecessary.
The two-Test series starts in Galle on 14 January.
-BBC
Past champions fall at Bowls Nationals
Two of the past four winners of the men's singles have fallen short of the knockout rounds at the National Lawn Bowls Championships in Auckland.
2017 champion Dean Elgar (West End) and Taylor Horn (Mangere), who won the men's singles when it was last staged at Carlton Cornwall two years ago, have both failed to register the three wins required to advance to post-section play.
Elgar was the first to be eliminated after he succumbed to back-to-back defeats at Mt Wellington, while Horn followed him out of the nationals after he was dramatically beaten 21-20 by Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Aidan Zittersteijn (Paritutu) in the fourth and final round at Howick.
The pair were the biggest casualties of section play in the men's singles.
Defending champion Andrew Kelly (Canterbury 2017) and past winners Mike Kernaghan (North East Valley), Shannon McIlroy (Stoke) and Gary Lawson (Elmwood Park) have all qualified with perfect records, as have rising stars Ray Martin (Victoria), Sheldon Bagrie-Howley (Gore), Aiden Takarua (Pt Chevalier), Finbar McGuigan (Stokes Valley) and Seamus Curtin (Stokes Valley).
Women's singles champion Nicole Toomey is out of the running in the pairs.
Toomey and Tannith Potgieter have been beaten 15-11 by Denis West and Caroline Dubois in the sixth and final round of qualifying at Te Atatu to fall one win short of securing a place in post-section play.
Derby team self-isolating
Interim manager Wayne Rooney and his entire Derby County first-team squad are self-isolating after a Covid-19 outbreak and will miss their FA Cup third-round match at Chorley.
Several Derby players and staff tested positive for the virus on Monday, leading to the closure of the second-tier Championship club's Moor Farm training ground.
Academy director Darren Wassall will now take charge of a side made up of youth- team players for the potential banana-skin tie against the minnows of sixth-tier Chorley.
League One club Shrewsbury Town have also reported several positive tests among their squad which is scheduled to travel to Premier League Southampton in the FA Cup this weekend.
-Reuters
Female umpire to officiate at the SCG
Australia's Claire Polosak is set to become the first female to officiate in a men's cricket Test match.
The 32-year-old will be the fourth umpire in Thursday's third Test between Australia and India in Sydney.
Last year, Polosak became the first woman on-field umpire in a men's one-day international, standing for the game between Namibia and Oman.
She was also the first woman to stand in an Australian men's domestic fixture in 2017.
Australia and India are currently tied 1-1 in the four-match series.
Polosak will joined by on-field umpires Paul Reiffel and Paul Wilson, TV umpire Bruce Oxenford and match referee David Boon.
The responsibilities of a fourth umpire include overseeing pitch preparation and repairs, player injuries and replacements, and organising replacement or new balls.
Polosak will also be on standby should anything happen to the on-field or TV umpires.
-BBC
Another English rugby game off
The English Premiership rugby game between Northampton Saints and Leicester Tigers this weekend has been called off after the Saints returned positive Covid-19 tests.
The Premiership said that Saints' training ground has been closed following the results after the latest round of testing. The next round of testing is scheduled for Monday.
This marks the second time Leicester have had a game called off in recent weeks due to Covid-19 cases after Newcastle Falcons returned positive tests.
Saints also had a game over the weekend cancelled when London Irish returned several positive test results.
With no room on the calendar to reschedule the matches, the Premiership has been recording 0-0 results in those games, awarding four points to the club who were able to fulfil the fixture and two points to the other.
-Reuters
