Sports digest

A round-up of today's other stories in brief

Hamilton wrongly criticises team-mate Button

FORMULA ONE:A difficult Japanese Grand Prix weekend for McLaren ended embarrassingly with Lewis Hamilton wrongly criticising team-mate Jenson Button on Twitter. Button and Hamilton finished fourth and fifth at Suzuka as McLaren struggled for pace relative to the Red Bulls. Sebastian Vettel won to narrow Fernando Alonso's title lead to four points.

The race was the first since Hamilton’s move to Mercedes was confirmed and he took Button to task on Twitter, having been led to believe his team-mate had stopped following him on the social media site. Hamilton tweeted: “Just noticed jensonbutton unfollowed, thats a shame. After 3 years as teammates, I thought we respected one another but clearly he doesn’t. Funny thing is, we are STILL teammates! All good tho, I plan on giving this team fans all I got til I cross the finish line in brazil!!!”

But the 27-year-old was left red-faced when he realised Button did not follow his Twitter account in the first place. That led him to tweet: “My bad, just found out Jenson never followed me. Don’t blame him!”

Dettori quiet on Arc defection

RACING:Talk in Newmarket yesterday might have centred around Frankie Dettori's future plans but none of it was emanating from the jockey himself despite his diary being clear for the next few days.

The Italian's professional future remains unclear, with Godolphin opting to let some dust settle over the jockey's defection to ride Camelot for Aidan O'Brien in Sunday's Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.

Neither Godolphin nor Dettori himself was in a rush to say anything further over his decision to take the mount aboard the dual Derby winner, who trailed home in seventh behind the surprise winner Solemia.

Dettori's name was removed from two horses he was to ride for Godolphin at Nottingham tomorrow, with Silvestre de Sousa deputising on both, but the jockey is expected to be back riding at York on Friday.

It will be interesting to see whether he is on board any of the operation's runners at Newmarket's Future Champions Day fixture on Saturday but the likelihood is it will now be the end of the season before Dettori's future with Godolphin is resolved.

Bolt plans to stay on track to defend titles in Rio

ATHLETICS:Usain Bolt has revealed he plans to defend his Olympic sprint titles in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and not switch disciplines.

The Jamaican declared himself a "living legend" after retaining his 100 and 200 metres crowns in London this summer, as well as being a member of his country's victorious 4x100m relay team.

He has previously hinted he could seek a new challenge in Rio, saying he wanted to have a go at the long jump, while he has continually been linked with the 400m.

But, speaking on a trip to New Zealand, the world's fastest man confirmed his only intention is to go for a second defence of his sprint crowns in Brazil.

"Rio is about going and defending my titles," Bolt said in Auckland. "I don't want to try any different events at Rio, because at Rio I will just defend my titles to show the world that there is a possibility that I can do it again. To do the three-peat, that is the focus."

Bolt's main focus for next year are the World Championships in Moscow and he claimed he would not be taking things easy now the Olympics are over.

SA cricket union deny Pietersen text row claims

CRICKET:Cricket South Africa (CSA) have dismissed claims their players instigated the text-message row that led to Kevin Pietersen being dropped by England.

England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chief executive David Collier told BBC radio on Sunday Pietersen's texts to South African players during the recent Test series were in response to messages from the opposition.

"This is absolute rubbish," CSA's acting chief executive Jacques Faul said in a statement yesterday. "What is particularly disappointing is that I had a face-to-face meeting with Mr Collier when I was in London for the Lord's Test. He did not raise this allegation with me then and I would have thought as a matter of courtesy and decency he would have spoken to me about it before going public," he said.

ICC to investigate match fixing

CRICKET:The International Cricket Council (ICC) has launched an investigation into match-fixing allegations made by an Indian television channel against international umpires.

Footage screened on India TV yesterday appeared to show umpires from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka negotiating deals with under-cover reporters to spot-fix matches.

The channel showed footage of Pakistan's Nadeem Ghauri, Nadir Shah of Bangladesh, part of the ICC international panel of umpires, and Sagara Gallage of Sri Lanka agreeing to give favourable decisions in exchange for umpiring contracts and money.

"The ICC and its relevant members have been made aware of the allegations made by India TV this evening and calls on the station to turnover any information which can assist the ICC's urgent investigations into this matter," the governing body said in a statement.

The ICC confirmed that none of the umpires named were involved in any of the official games of the ICC World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka.