Sports round-up

Basketball: Chinese sporting hero Yao Ming is to return to school this autumn, three months after retiring from the game that made him a global basketball star. The former Houston Rockets player will attend Shanghai’s Jiaotong University, one of China’s most prestigious institutions, but has not yet decided what he will study.

Cricket: Troy Cooley was yesterday appointed interim coach for Australia’s upcoming tour of South Africa following Tim Nielsen’s resignation, but said he was not interested in the position full-time. Cooley, 45, is currently head coach at CA’s Centre of Excellence in Brisbane, and since 2006 has been the country’s bowling coach, as well as its assistant coach for the last two years. But he will not be applying for the head coach role full-time.

Motor Racing: Britain’s Dan Wheldon will race in Sunday’s IndyCar race at Kentucky as a tune-up for his attempt to go from worst to first and win $5 million in the season-ending race at Las Vegas. The Englishman, who won the 100th anniversary edition of the Indianapolis 500 last May, is not a regular racer in the series, having won $2.5 million and his second career Indy 500 title as a one-off driver at the famed Brickyard oval. Now Wheldon will replace Canada’s Alex Tagliani in driving for Sam Schmidt at Kentucky.