Sports round-up

Cricket: Another dismal performance by India’s creaking top order saw the tourists tottering towards a heavy defeat after the second day of the third Test against Australia in Perth yesterday. At the close of play, India were 88-4 in their second innings after yet another collapse, an overall deficit of 120 runs. Australia were dismissed earlier for 369 in their first innings, bolstered by a pugnacious 180 from David Warner, giving the home side an overall lead of 208 after the Indians made just 161 in their first innings.

Boxing: Plans for All Blacks star and part-time boxer Sonny Bill Williams to fight for the vacant New Zealand heavyweight crown were up in the air after it was discovered his would-be opponent is in jail. Williams was scheduled to fight Richard Tutaki on February 8. But the New Zealand Herald reported yesterday that Tutaki has been arrested and denied bail after failing to turn up in court on drugs charges.

Swimming: Janet Evans, a four-time Olympic gold medallist mounting a comeback at the age of 40, qualified for the US Olympic swimming trials, moving a step closer to booking a London berth. Former world record-holder Evans won her 400m freestyle heat at the Austin Grand Prix in 4min 17.27sec, comfortably inside the trials qualifying standard of 4:19.39.

Basket, NBA: Kobe Bryant delivered his third-straight 40-point NBA game yesterday, scoring 42 as Los Angeles Lakers held off Cleveland Cavaliers 97-92. Pau Gasol added 19 points and 10 rebounds for the Lakers, who gave head coach Mike Brown the victory in his first game against his former team. The Lakers have won five straight and improved to 9-4 overall and to 8-1 at their home arena of Staples Center.

Tennis: Bernard Tomic won his first senior title at the Kooyong Classic yesterday stunning world number eight Mardy Fish 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 in the final and earning a confidence boost ahead of the Australian Open. The 19-year-old Australian again showed his promise, following a run to the Wimbledon quarter-finals last summer and a semi-final loss in Brisbane against Andy Murray last week.

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Athletics: Troubled French triple jumper Teddy Tamgho (picture) has denied hitting an amateur female athlete. The world champion was in December banned for six months over the incident. But Tamgho denied that he had launched a physical attack on Glodie Tudiesche, who has stated that she had sustained knees-to- the-head punches and kicks. “If I’d really done that, what’s she still doing alive?” asked Tamgho. “There was a little altercation about a personal affair,” Tamgho added, explaining that Tudiesche had been telling friends that the triple jumper had asked her to marry him for three years.

Olympics: The strong emergence of the Twenty20 format has the ICC considering a bid to have cricket return to the Olympics after more than a century. Cricket has been played only once at the Olympics, in 1900, although it was not officially recognised as an Olympic sport until 12 years later. The ICC was officially recognised as a fed-eration by the IOC in 2010.