Sports digest

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

Mumps disrupts French fixtures

RUGBY:The rough and tumble of the macho French league has been curtailed by an unexpected source – an epidemic of mumps.

The virus, normally associated with children, has forced the French rugby union league (LNR) to postpone next weekend’s Basque derby between Biarritz and Bayonne after another Top 14 game was called off for the same reason.

“Because of an epidemic of mumps within the Lyon squad the LNR has decided, as a precaution, to postpone the Biarritz v Bayonne game,” the LNR said in a statement yesterday.

The LNR explained it made the decision to avoid possible contamination by the Biarritz players as they faced Lyon on October 22nd.

The Bordeaux v Lyon game was postponed last week because Lyon players were suffering from mumps.

Jury still out on duo facing match-fixing allegations

CRICKET: Jurors hearing the trial of two Pakistan cricketers accused of match-fixing have retired to consider their verdicts for a third day.

Former Test captain Salman Butt, 27, and fast bowler Mohammad Asif, 28, are alleged to have plotted to bowl deliberate no-balls in last summer’s Lord’s Test against England.

The pair were charged after an undercover News of the World reporter recorded sports agent Mazhar Majeed, 36, boasting of how he could arrange for Pakistan players to rig games for money, London’s Southwark Crown Court heard.

Majeed claimed he had been carrying out match-fixing for two-and-a-half years, had seven players from Pakistan’s national side working for him, and had made “masses and masses of money”.

Over three weeks of evidence, the jury of six men and six women has heard that there are huge sums to be made by fixing cricket matches for gambling syndicates.

La Russa bows out on a high

BASEBALL: Tony La Russa announced his retirement yesterday, just three days after managing the St Louis Cardinals to the World Series title.

La Russa, 67, had managed in the major leagues for 33 years, 16 of them with the Cardinals, who defeated the Texas Rangers in seven games for his third World Series crown.

He previously won World Series titles with the Cardinals in 2006 and 2011 and with the Oakland Athletics in 1989.

Honda opt to compete in Valencia

MOTO GP: The Honda Gresini team will compete at the Valencia Grand Prix this weekend after previously pulling out of the season-ending race following the death of their Italian rider Marco Simoncelli.

Simoncelli, 24, was killed during the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang on October 23rd when he came off his bike and was hit by fellow riders Colin Edwards and Valentino Rossi.

“The decision to participate was not an easy one but we have made this choice as it is what Marco would have wanted,” team chief Fausto Gresini said.

“Going out on the track at Valencia is definitely the best way to honour him by doing what he most loved to do: ride and experience the world of MotoGP.”

The team will not replace Simoncelli in Valencia. Japans Hiroshi Aoyama is to be their sole representative for the MotoGP race while the Moto 2 event will feature Michele Pirro and Yuki Takahashi.