Global sport

An Italian newspaper today said Lazio were prepared to pay a world record $ 62 million to buy him. Rivaldo, speaking on Spanish television today, said, “It’s true I did say in the dressing-room that I don’t want to play on the left any more.

I spoke with due respect to my team mates and the coaching staff but I did it because it came from the heart. I’ve spent two years here playing stuck out on the left, sacrificing myself. "But now I’m 27 years old and I want to enjoy my game so that I can help Barcelona win the Champions League."

Ramprakash called
EAST LONDON, SA: The touring English side hassummoned batsman Mark Ramprakash immediately to South Africa as a finger injury threatens to keep Michael Vaughan out of the third Test, to start Sunday.

But Ramprakash, who played in 18 successive Tests before missing out on selection for the South African tour, would only be called to play should another player “go down,” captain Nasser Hussain said.

Aussie celebration
SYDNEY: Current Aussie captain Steve Waugh will be joined by 14 former skippers at a luncheon in January for “the celebration of a century of Australian cricket”.

The get-together will be the biggest gathering of Aussie greats since the 1977 Centenery Test against England in Melbourne.

A signed dinner menu from Don Bradman’s 1948 invincibles tour will be the centrepiece of an auction planned for the day.

— Agencies