Australian skipper Ricky Ponting will be batting for cancer-stricken children during the Ashes campaign against England.

Ponting is following in the footsteps of former team-mates Steve Waugh and Glenn McGrath.

This is part of “Run Ricky Run”, a new anti-cancer initiative by the Ponting Foundation in collaboration with Fox Sports. Cricket lovers can sponsor every run scored by the Australian captain in the five-Test series against England and the money would go to charities fighting childhood cancer.

“One purpose is to obviously raise much-needed funds for childhood cancer, but I think it has another effect,” Ponting was quoted as saying by ‘Herald Sun’.

“It will keep a lot of people interested in the cricket while we are away - it’s another way for kids in particular to stay in touch and in tune with what the team is doing and how many runs I am scoring,” he added.

The Good Samaritan

Ponting and his wife Rianna have been taking a lot of interest in the issue and the Australian captain said this is one of the many initiatives he has in his mind.

“The work Rianna and I have done for children’s cancer and trying to find a cure for childhood cancer has been pretty well known around Australia.

“This is one of the new initiatives that we have come up with,” Ponting added.

Ponting’s former captain Steve Waugh supports Udayan, a house for children of lepers in a Kolkata suburb, while McGrath has been championing breast cancer awareness for quite a while.

Retired Aussie stumper Adam Gilchrist too has donated generously for physically-challenged kids.

For every six he hit in the Indian Premier League II, a physically-challenged kid got a modified bike.

Andy Murray rode the dramatic wave of emotion generated under Wimbledon’s new roof to make instant history.

His latest victory also kept alive his dreams of recording even more next Sunday.

In the latest Wimbledon finish in Wimbledon history, 10.38pm, and with the famous hill still packed but in total darkness, the Scot needed the assistance of a partisan crowd and some raucous support from his mum Judy to defeat Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland 2-6 6-3 6-3 5-7 6-3.

It was the spectacular dogfight Wimbledon 2009 had been yearning for, three hours and 57 minutes of stomach-churning tension which was validation of the All England Club’s decision to spend £100m or so on their new roof.

At the end Murray fell to his knees and admitted: “It’s great to have come through. I believe I can win Wimbledon, that has not changed. I have to play great tennis to do it and I had to play great tennis to come back tonight.”

He then went on to criticise Wimbledon’s decision to play the match under the roof, which had been put to its first competitive use when showers halted the previous match between Dinara Safin and Amelie Mauresmo.

When Murray took to the court with Wawrinka the weather was dry and Murray said: “It’s tough when you’re warming up, getting ready for the match outside and it’s dry and then get told you’re playing under the roof.

“The decision should be made before that match (Safina’s) is finished so they can let the players know in a decent amount of time what conditions they are going to be playing under

“In very few sports would coaches and teams be particularly happy if they don’t know exactly what time they’re going to kick off or what the conditions are going to be like when they go out there.

“When you haven’t experienced something before it is tough to know how it’s going to play. There is quite a big difference.”

Murray blamed the humid conditions for the way he struggled on his serve, saying: “We were sweating so much. Both of us were trying to get white towels because your hands were drenched. When I finished it was like I had been in a bath. It slowed things down a lot and I struggled to serve because it wasn’t coming off the strings that quickly.

“I like playing indoors but when you have not practised or ever played a match under a roof on grass you don’t know what to expect. For two and an half sets I played great tennis, it just took me a while to get used to it.”

At times it looked as if the roof was about to fall in on Murray’s quest to become the first Briton to lift the men’s singles in 73 years as he ran into a man in Wawrinka playing the tennis of his life.

How did Murray survive?

Sheer guts and determination. Plus a burning desire not to let down a Centre Court crowd who willed him across the finish line in the way they used to carry Tim Henman in his hours of need in SW19.

Murray now faces wild card Juan Carlos Ferrero in the quarter finals and his fans can only hope he has not been too drained physically and mentally by such a momentous encounter.

It was all the more creditable because Murray could not have started more poorly, losing the opening game on serve and the opening set to a Wawrinka who belied his world ranking of 18.

Wawrinka’s backhand winners are as stunning as any shot in the game, including any of his compatriot Roger Federer, with whom he won the doubles gold medal in the Beijing Olympics.

And he pulverised Murray in that first set when the Scot appeared to have been unnerved by the indoor conditions as well as the brilliance of a man who has become one of his great pals as well as a regular practice partner.

There were several pivotal moments.

First, in the second set when Murray produced a brilliant running forehand to salvage a game he might well have lost, after which Murray pumped his fists, the crowd at last got to the heart of the action and mum Judy all but vaulted the barrier in front of Centre Court.

Second, in the sixth game of the third set when Murray saved three break points with crashing winners off both backhand and forehand to gain a crucial momentum swing.

The fourth set was a tense struggle, full of heavy hitting, but it was Wawrinka who dug in to gain the only break in the 11th game.

And so it went to a fifth in which Murray raced to a 3-0 lead, coming back from 40-love down to break the Wawrinka serve.

Cue sigh of relief. Too soon. Again Wawrinka squared things up and by then they were more like heavyweight boxers out on their feet than tennis players

Weary as he was, however, Murray conjured up one last effort to break the Wawrinka serve once more in the eighth game to clinch a famous victory.

Murray said: “At the end it was probably the noisiest crowd I’ve played in front of. It definitely sounds and feels much louder with the roof. The support is great.”

It was the understatement of the night.

Days after asking Liverpool to open the cheque book Fernando Torres has insisted that Liverpool can succeed without spending big.

Liverpool’s star-striker had encouraged the Reds to pursue their interest in Valencia’s David Villa and David Silva, but with the realisation that such a big-money raid is unlikely to happen ‘El Nino’ backed the clubs current players to make a big statement in the league next season.

Speaking to English daily The Guardian, Torres said, “I don’t know about Liverpool’s financial situation but I know we don’t have the same money as Manchester United or Chelsea.

“We’re fighting them with less money every season. That’s not a problem for us - we’re a strong team and we’ll win trophies with money or without it.

“The important thing is we’re getting closer to the title.”

Torres then spoke of his frustration at Liverpool’s lack of success during his time at Anfield, continuing, “It’s been frustrating for me because three years without a trophy for Liverpool is too long. The next one is coming, though - I’m sure of it.”

He then admitted that Spanish international team-mate David Villa might be an unattainable target, stating, “I know Rafa is working hard to bring in good players but I’m pretty sure David Villa will be too expensive for us.

“He is an outstanding striker and if Liverpool could sign anyone, I’d ask for him. He’s been in sensational form this season.

“But, to be honest, we have Steven Gerrard playing behind the striker and he scores 20 goals a season, so we don’t really need another forward.”

According to Torres, keeping the players they currently have is more important for Liverpool than signing new ones. “We just need to keep our best players,” he said.

“I worry about losing my team-mates but if we can keep our best players and bring in some more, we’ll be even stronger for next season. “

Liverpool’s bankers Royal Bank of Scotland have stressed the club is “financially healthy and able to service comfortably its debt”.

American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett are currently in negotiations to refinance the £350million loan they took out to buy the Reds two years ago, with less than a month to go until the deadline for an agreement.

A deal is believed to be close and despite speculation about potential financial meltdown at Anfield RBS, who have taken the unprecedented step of writing to fans to explain the situation, are happy to give their full support to the Merseysiders.

According to the Liverpool Daily Post the bank has stressed they have a “long-term relationship with the club, and we look forward to this continuing for many years to come”.

“In our view and that of the executive management of the club, it is financially healthy and able to service comfortably its debt obligations from cash flow generated by its playing and commercial activities.

“It is in our commercial interest to support the club . . . so that it can continue to perform successfully on and off the pitch.”

Hicks and Gillett currently pay around £35million a year in interest on their loan and recently auditors KPMG went public with their concern over the level of debt being incurred by Kop Football Holdings, Liverpool’s parent company, after it posted losses of £42.6million in the year ending July 2008.

That was in contrast to the football club business itself, which made a profit of £10.2million.

The bank have dismissed concerns about the potential fragility of Liverpool’s finances, stressing there is a clear dividing line between what the club owes them and what debt Hicks and Gillett have taken on.

“RBS is the main banker to the club including all of its operating accounts, cash management, online banking, automated payments, and credit card processing to facilitate ticket sales and retail merchandising,” stated the email, according to the Daily Post.

“We also lent money to the club’s parent, Kop Football Limited, so that it could repay debt which was on the balance sheet of the club at the time of its acquisition by George Gillett and Tom Hicks.

“This is the only portion of Kop Football’s bank debt for which the club is legally responsible.

“We took great care when making our original loan in early 2007 and when refinancing it last January to distinguish between obligations of the club, primarily those outlined above, and obligations of its parent company, the latter being secured by personal guarantees and collateral from the owners and a pledge of the shares they own in the club.”

Gillett has already struck a deal to sell ice hockey team the Montreal Canadiens for around £330million.

It is expected he will use some of the proceeds from that as a personal guarantee, which will help in the refinancing negotiations as RBS and Wachovia, the other bank involved, are likely to ask for more stringent conditions.

Hicks is also trying to realise more capital by offloading about half of his 95% stake in the Texas Rangers baseball team, which could raise around £125million.

Yesterday American billionaire Robert Kraft, owner of American Football franchise New England Patriots and MLS side New England Revolution, admitted he was very close to buying Liverpool before Hicks and Gillett became involved.

“I met with [the then chairman] David Moores, who is a fine gentleman, and we came very close to buying it, very close,” he said.

“But in the end my instinct was - without a salary cap, or a stadium… I wasn’t sure how we’d get a stadium built quickly and efficiently.

“If the salary cap was there, we would have done it.”

World T20 champions England came back down to earth with a bump after they went down to a 34-run defeat to Australia in Derby

England had beaten the same opponents last week in a thrilling run chase with Claire Taylor and Beth Morgan scoring 122 off 78 balls to reach the final of the World Twenty20 where they beat New Zealand.

While Taylor top-scored today with 31, England could only reach 117 for six in response to Australia’s 151 for three.

It was a good all-round performance by the visitors with openers Leah Poulton and Shelley Nitschke combining to build a stand of 55 off 36 deliveries before the former was out for 33.

Poulton signalled her intent when she took 10 off Laura Marsh in the first over, including two fours.

Steadfast

Nitschke joined in in the second over to hit Isa Guha for nine and the Australians were moving ominously, averaging more than nine an over, when Poulton was bowled by Holly Colvin after an innings that took in 22 deliveries and included seven fours.

Alex Blackwell came to the crease but just 18 runs later opener Nitschke was caught by Claire Taylor off Guha for 32.

Karen Rolton joined Blackwell and the pair put on 32 before the latter was out for 18.

Rolton, though, remained steadfast and finished unbeaten on 43 off 37 with Lauren Ebsary 24 not out off just 13 deliveries, including a four and a six.

England made five off their first over but at the end of the second Sarah Taylor was caught off the bowling of Rolton.

Charlotte Edwards was next out for 10 with the score on 17 meaning Claire Taylor and Morgan were reunited, the pair building a stand of 42 before the former was out after an innings that included four boundaries off 23 deliveries.

Morgan was out for 20 with 66 on the board, Lydia Greenway made 19 and Jenny Gunn was out for six.

Although Ebony-Jewel Rainford-Brent was unbeaten 23 and Nicky Shaw made six not out, England were nowhere near Australia.

Aussie coach Tim Nielsen insists that a spin-friendly pitch in Cardiff will heap pressure on England ahead of first Ashes Test.

The hosts have named three spinners in their 16-man Ashes training squad with reports suggesting that the Swalec Stadium wicket will encourage the ball to turn.

But Nielsen said a twin-spin strategy will play into Australia’s hands.

“It puts more pressure on the spinners, England is making the challenge for them to play well,” he told BBC Sport.

England is expected to name off-spinner Graeme Swann in their starting XI for the first Test in Cardiff, but could omit a seamer for either Monty Panesar or Adil Rashid if, as is anticipated, as the Cardiff track will assist the slower bowlers.

Off-spinner Swann is the leading Test wicket-taker in 2009, claiming 26 wickets in five matches, dismissals which have demoted left-armer Panesar to the fringes of the squad, while leg-spinner Rashid has earned the effusive praise of Australia legend Shane Warne.

In contrast, Australia have only one specialist spinner in their 16-man squad in Nathan Hauritz, who has relatively little Test experience with four caps and 14 wickets.

The beauty of our top-order is that (Simon) Katich, (Marcus) North and (Michael) Clarke can all give us reasonable part-time spinning overs

Australia all-rounder Shane Watson will not be sent home after being diagnosed with a minor thigh injury.

Scans on Tuesday on Watson’s left knee confirmed a “low-grade strain”, which has forced the 28-year-old to miss the opening four-day tour game against Sussex at Hove.It is not yet known when Watson will fully recovered from the injury, but with just two weeks to go before the opening Ashes Test in Cardiff on July 8 his availability for that game remains in some doubt.

“Watson has suffered a low-grade strain”

Australia team physiotherapist Alex Kountouris did not put a time frame on Watson’s recovery, but gave hope he could return to fitness in time for the match at Sophia Gardens.

“He has suffered a low-grade strain of one of his quadriceps muscles,” Kountouris revealed. “We expect this injury should resolve fairly quickly.

“His return to play will be guided by progress made in the next few days.”

Watson had missed Australia’s training sessions on Monday and Tuesday after complaining of general stiffness.

That prompted the Australian team officials to contemplate calling up a replacement for the injury-prone Queenslander, however, the results of Wednesday’s scans would rule out such action in the short term at least.

While Watson will now stay on in England, his hopes of pressing for a place in the first Test team have been set back by his latest injury.

Captain Ricky Ponting admitted as much on Tuesday after the team for the match at Hove was named, saying: “For him it’s obviously a setback. He’s disappointed that he wasn’t available for selection in this game.

“I don’t know if it harms his chances even more for the first Test match but there’s an opportunity that’s slipped out of his grasp over the next four days.”

He added: “Hopefully within a couple of days he’s right to start back up and work up on his bowling again.”

An online bookmaker has confirmed it has alerted tennis authorities about unusual patterns of betting on a match at Wimbledon.

Betfair said the flood of wagers on Austrian number 26 seed Jurgen Melzer during his straight-sets first-round victory over American Wayne Odesnik was “very visible”.

There is no suggestion of wrongdoing, but the company has informed the Tennis Integrity Unit, which is expected to look into the game to determine whether the patterns were sinister or simply reflected fans’ judgment that the little-fancied Odesnik, who was carrying an injury, was likely to lose heavily.

Betfair’s Mark Davies told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We have a memorandum of understanding with the Tennis Integrity Unit which allows them to see betting patterns of all the betting which takes place on our site and we alerted them to this.

“It was extremely visible to all our customers, the price moving in as quickly as it did. There was a lot of chat about it on our forums.

“So we would have liaised with the Tennis Integrity Unit and then they can make a judgment whether there is something more sinister in this or whether it is just a question of people being aware of a player who was already significantly under-rated carrying an injury that meant that he was likely to lose.”

Graham Sharpe, media relations director of William Hill, believes the heavy gamble on Melzer may have simply occurred because the public saw the odds on him winning in straight sets to be too generous.

Sharpe said: “We haven’t made any complaint and we saw nothing untoward at all in the betting patterns.

“From our point of view we suspect people thought the game had been wrongly priced.

“The result was fully entitled to end up the way it did do.”

Reports in England are claiming that Manchester City-bound Carlos Tevez decided to leave Old Trafford over two weeks ago.

The Mirror newspaper has reported that City will announce a £25.5 million move in the coming days, something that seems increasingly likely to be validated after United announced over the weekend that Tevez had rejected a five-year contract offer from the Red Devils.

A statement on United’s website said that despite an offer that would make him one of the highest earners at Old Trafford,” his advisers informed the club that, despite the success he has enjoyed during one of the club’s most successful periods, he does not wish to continue playing for Manchester United.”

Speculation is rife that Tevez was upset by United manager Sir Alex Ferguson’s reluctance to give him a starting spot, and the Argentine has earlier claimed he did not feel like “part of the family” in Manchester.

Tevez apparently made his decision to leave since he felt he was not valued enough at the Theatre of Dreams, despite being a fan favourite, with cries of “Sign him up, sign him up” often erupting in the stands whenever he appeared toward the end of the season.

At Eastlands, Tevez is apparently set to sign a £100,000 a week contract, and will be the third signing for City after they snapped up Gareth Barry and Roque Santa Cruz.

Manager Mark Hughes, backed by the club’s Arab owners, is looking to revamp a City side that looking attackingly listless last season, and Tevez will join fellow new signing Santa Cruz as well as Robinho and Craig Bellamy up front for them.

After losing both Cristiano Ronaldo and Tevez early in the summer, Ferguson will certainly be under pressure to bring in new players, but United have so far been quiet in the market, despite being linked with Antonio Valencia, Douglas Costa and Karim Benzema among others.