Six Nations team news: Penaud blow for France as Ntamack and Dupont return

France’s Romain Ntamack is set to line up at fly-half for the first time in almost 18 months but the Six Nations favourites will be without the wing Damian Penaud for Friday night’s opener against Wales, adding to a list of key players unavailable for the curtain-raiser at the Stade de France.Ntamack missed the 2023 World Cup with a knee injury and his planned comeback last November was curtailed by a calf injury, but he will reprise his highly regarded combination with the returning captain, Antoine Dupont. Penaud had been expected to return to the team but suffered a toe injury in training and Théo Attissogbé will line up on the wing instead.France are already without the veteran centre Gaël Fickou, the lock Thibaud Flament and the loose forward Charles Ollivon, with Fabien Galthié making five changes in total from the side who beat Argentina 37-23 in Paris in November.Ntamack’s return pushes Thomas Ramos to full-back in place of Léo Barré while Pierre-Louis Barassi replaces Fickou in the midfield and Attissogbé takes Gabin Villiere’s place on the wing

England’s Jamie Overton ‘trying to be a ninja’ in channelling intensity

Back in late 2019, Somerset’s Lewis Gregory was given an unenviable task: to bat at No 7 in England’s Twenty20 team. In a five-match series against New Zealand he batted just three times. When he got to the crease, time was limited, risks required, the end product a tally of 21 runs from 19 balls for three dismissals.As a sixth bowler, he was required for just four overs, used across two matches. He played another handful of internationals in the following two years before returning to the shires

Johnny Herbert axed as steward by FIA over ‘incompatible’ role as F1 pundit

Johnny Herbert has left his role as a Formula One driver steward after the FIA said his grand prix work was “incompatible” with his job as a media pundit.Herbert attracted criticism from Max Verstappen’s camp last season for his comments about the Red Bull driver’s performance at the Mexican Grand Prix. The three-time race winner from 160 starts, who competed for an array of F1 teams in the 80s and 90s and won the Le Mans 24 Hours, had been scheduled to officiate at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on 16 March.Verstappen picked up a 20-second penalty for forcing McLaren rival Lando Norris off the track twice during the race and Herbert claimed the driving had been “harsh” and “over the top” and felt the Dutchman had a “horrible mindset”. FIA stewards work as unpaid volunteers and a panel of four stewards officiate incidents at F1 meetings

No transparency please, we’re the IOC: Coe makes his pitch for world sport’s top job

It sounds like a brain stumper from a particularly fiendish pub quiz. Which major 2025 election is being fought over by several presidents, a vice-president, a prince, a lord, and a politician from Zimbabwe? And, for good measure, could be won for the first time by someone from Britain?The answer can be found in Lausanne, where the seven candidates hoping to become the next president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have gathered to make their one and only direct pitch – via a 15-minute PowerPoint presentation – for the biggest job in global sport.It is also a position that carries significant diplomatic sway. When the current president, Thomas Bach, was elected in 2013, one of the first calls he received was from Vladimir Putin. The IOC was also instrumental in the brief rapprochement between North and South Korea in 2018, when President Trump and Kim Jong-un were trading insults

Sri Lanka v Australia: first men’s cricket Test, day one – as it happened

Play will start 15 minutes early tomorrow, with 98 overs to be bowled. Angus Fontaine will be back then, and we’ll also have live coverage of the pink-ball Test at the MCG. Until then, goodnight.The covers are still on and the umpires have called play off for the day. It’s been a brilliant start to the series for Australia, who won an important toss and took full advantage

The Spin | Flintoff fever grows with Rocky robbing his famous father of records

The clip is only 34 seconds long and its production values are low; an iPhone in portrait mode on the boundary edge of a sun-soaked cricket pitch. Follow the clues: an unused floodlight looms over proceedings like a giant steel dandelion, we’re not at some tin-pot ground here. What’s that song blaring out? No need to reach for Shazam, you know it – Freddie Mercury giving it both lungs as Under Pressure reaches a crescendo. The sound is tinny, like someone’s put their phone into an empty bowl. Sure, they’ll pay for their last-minute scrabble for ad-hoc amplification with Dorito dust in their speaker duct but all that’s for later