Wednesday, 9 January 2013

Newcastle out of FA Cup as holders Chelsea sink Southampton - The Guardian

Hot on the heels of Christmas, and bringing with it not just good cheer but significantly fewer arguments about meat, the FA Cup third round provided some familiar winter balm. The biggest shock was Brighton's 2-0 defeat of a flaccid Newcastle United. "We need to get some bigger players who can handle the situation of carrying the Newcastle jersey," said Alan Pardew. Either that or a slightly lighter jersey. Manchester United squeaked a 2-2 draw at West Ham, It-Boy Demba Ba scored twice as holders Chelsea beat Southampton 5-1, Macclesfield and Luton of the Conference both beat Championship opposition and, as if to prove he's taking it all seriously, Luis Suárez even managed to score a controversial handball-related goal in Liverpool's 2-1 defeat of a rightly aggrieved Mansfield Town.

Pakistan run India ragged

The Indian cricket team continued to find ever more ingenious ways of driving the vast numbers of their fans to fresh extremes of howling despair. The recent defeat by England was followed up with a home one-day international series ragging by Pakistan, sealed with an 85-run thrashing at Eden Gardens, where Nasir Jamshed scored his third successive century against India. Happier times for Pakistan whose players have each been awarded a commemorative camel by a member of the ruling political party. No ungulates for Australia's Test team but plenty of trembling lower lips as Mike Hussey bid farewell to test cricket: he guided them to a five wicket victory in Sydney to complete a 3-0 series clean-sweep of a supine Sri Lanka.

Murray takes Brisbane title

Andy Murray warmed up for the Australian Open by retaining his Brisbane International title with a straight-sets defeat of Bulgarian ingenue Grigor Dimitrov. The day before, Serena Williams took the women's crown with a 6-2, 6-1 cuffing of Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. "I don't know if I was in the zone today, but I was definitely heading in that direction," said Williams, who appears to be in the mood to hoover up absolutely everything this year.

Deal to end hockey lockout

The owners and players' union in the US and Canada's National Hockey League have reached a tentative deal on a new labour agreement to salvage the season. The deal to end the lockout, which began on 16 September and stopped 625 games, must be ratified by a majority of the union's roughly 750 members and the league's 30-member board of governors before it can become official. If approved by both sides, the NHL will hold either a 50- or 48-game season that would begin on 15 or 19 January.

Sinfield scoops world gong

Rugby League: not just a man's game, but occasionally – whisper it - even an Englishman's game. League's world player of the year is Kevin Sinfield of Leeds, an honour received with characteristic humility by the man himself and with characteristic snorting outrage by the Australian media, who think it should have gone to Cameron Smith, Cooper Cronk or basically anyone wearing a vest and flip-flops. Sinfield is just the fourth Englishman to take the award.

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