Rugby Union: Former England winger Tom Varndell equalled Mark Cueto’s English Premiership career try-scoring record when he dotted down his 90th score during Bristol’s victory at Sale on Sunday. Despite Bristol struggling at the foot of the table Varndell has been in great form in recent weeks, scoring a hat-trick in their vital win over fellow-struggles Worcester. That had been the promoted club’s only league victory of the season until Sunday’s 24-23 triumph at Sale. Cueto, who retired in 2015, scored all 90 of his tries for Sale.
Tennis: Defending champion Novak Djokovic made a sticky return to action before recovering from losing the opening four games to beat Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff at the Qatar Open yesterday. Djokovic, who was deposed as world number one by Andy Murray at the back end of last year and split with coach Boris Becker, eventually snapped into his usual rhythm to win 7-6(1) 6-3. The Serbian will play Argentine Horacio Zeballos who had the better of Florian Mayer, of Germany, 6-7 6-4 7-6 in the second round.
Cricket: Indian cricket board (BCCI) president Anurag Thakur and secretary Ajay Shirke were removed by the country’s top court yesterday for failing to implement administrative reforms within the body. In July, the court accepted most of the recommendations of a three-member panel it had set up to look into the operations of the world’s richest cricket board following a fixing scandal during the 2013 Indian Premier League Twenty20 competition. The BCCI rejected a few of the recommendations made by the panel which included age and tenure restrictions for top officials, as well as banning them from serving successive terms.
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Rugby Union: Manu Tuilagi (picture, right) has been ruled out of England’s training camp in Brighton this week after a knee injury forced him to limp out of Leicester’s 16-12 defeat to Saracens. The centre, playing only his sixth game following a two-month lay-off because of a groin issue and with England head coach Eddie Jones watching on, hobbled off after just eight minutes at Welford Road, having fallen awkwardly in a double tackle. Leicester director of rugby Richard Cockerill said Tuilagi would be assessed after the problem area had settled down but England have opted to replace the 25-year-old with Bath wing Semesa Rokoduguni.