Nelson Mandela Bay Giants 163 for 5 (Roy 50, Smuts 33, Siboto 2-41) beat Durban Heat 160 for 5 (Bopara 57*, Miller 45, Burger 2-24) by five wickets

Durban Heat may have felt that they had dug themselves out of a hole after posting 160 from a precarious 50 for 4 in the eighth over, and may even have briefly entertained thoughts of a maiden win, but against the MSL's top team this season, it wasn't quite enough. For table toppers Nelson Mandela Bay Giants who maintained their supremacy with their fourth win in five matches, Jason Roy set things up with a 38-ball 50 at the top and Chris Morris closed off the chase in thrilling fashion with just one ball to spare.

Roy dominated the opening stand worth 68 with Matthew Breetzke, before he was caught short of his ground by England team-mate Alex Hales halfway into the 11th over. But No. 3 and captain JJ Smuts took over, racing to 15 off eight balls with the help of a four and a six, before Breetzke, who had laboured to 25 off 31 fell to the legspin of Shaun von Berg.

Just as the Giants looked like coasting to their target, they lost three wickets in quick succession, Malusi Siboto removing the dangerous Smuts for 33, before accounting for Marco Marais for a five-ball 11 only two balls later. That left the Giants 31 to get from 15 balls, and the equation came down to 16 required from six before Morris clobbered a six and two consecutive fours off Siboto to seal the match with his 22 off 10.

Earlier, Heat lost their way after opting to bat against an attack featuring three of the tournaments' top five wicket takers. But it was the lesser known medium pace of Nandre Burger that did the damage, first accounting for Hales for a leading edge on the off side and then Wihan Lubbe, who scooped a catch to mid-on.

Captain Dane Vilas fell to his counterpart Smuts, before Imran Tahir had the set Wesley Marshall caught at long-on to leave them four down. It was then that David Miller and Ravi Bopara got together for the highest stand of the match, adding 100 in 70 balls, to bring Heat back into the contest. Miller was strangled down the leg side for a 36-ball 45, but Bopara batted through, finishing unbeaten on a 43-ball 57. Eventually, though, their efforts were in vain.

Heat are yet to win a match this season, with three washouts to their name so far, and are currently second from bottom.

Bangladesh 106 and 152 for 6 (Rahim 59*, Ishant 4-39) trail India 347 for 9 dec (Kohli 136, Pujara 55, Rahane 51, Al-Amin 3-85) by 89 runs

The first day-night Test in India threatens to be the shortest in the country. After two days - 916 legal deliveries - India were just four, possibly three, wickets away from recording their longest winning streak: seven. The quickest it has previously taken to achieve an outright result in India is 1028 balls, against Afghanistan in 2018. With that record still up for grabs on day three at Eden Gardens, the match also seems destined to be the joint-leanest for spinners in India - just one wicket to them so far, matching the Golden Jubilee Test of 1981.

It is hard to judge if the conditions were very skewed against the batsmen, because Bangladesh did play quite a few tame shots to get out. Ishant Sharma looked nigh unplayable with his inswing and the odd legcutter, ending the day one wicket short of only his second 10-wicket match haul. He hit Mohammad Mithun with a bouncer, and had that resulted in a concussion, Bangladesh would have had to get Mustafizur Rahman in as a batting-only substitute. Bangladesh still found themselves a player short with Mahmudullah injuring his hamstring trying to complete a quick single.

And oh, by the way, Virat Kohli scored his 27th Test century, his 20th as captain, going past Ricky Ponting and behind only Graeme Smith's 25. Speaking of captains, a former captain, Mushfiqur Rahim, made sure the match went into day three with a counterattacking fifty after he himself was hit on the head.

The day began with India 68 in the lead, seven wickets in hand and Kohli primed for yet another inevitable-looking Test hundred. Like a matter of routine, Kohli eased his way to a century despite some turn for Taijul Islam, who had come in as a concussion substitute for Nayeem Hasan. The problem with Bangladesh was they were bowling good balls but not good overs. Kohli was alert enough to keep the good ones out, and take risk-free runs off the ordinary ones. Some of the driving of course was gorgeous.

Ajinkya Rahane was unfortunate enough to fall to the odd good ball despite having crossed fifty. Unlike Kohli, Rahane likes to stay back to spin and play a lot of horizontal-bat shots. The kind of delivery that would have beaten Kohli on the forward-defensive took a top edge on the cut. Not that it changed the flow of the game a lot. Nor did the movement with the second new ball. All it did was hasten the end of the Indian innings - declared closed at nine down - to give Bangladesh a possible 44 overs to survive on the second evening.

The way Ishant started, it didn't look like Bangladesh would last the night. In his first over, he toyed with the outside edge of Shadman Islam, moving closer and closer to the stumps and finally trapping him lbw. Captain Mominul Haque then grabbed a pair by managing to somehow edge a half-volley.

That brought together batsmen with two of the five worst averages in Test cricket in the last three years: Mithun and Imrul Kayes. Mithun soon suffered a sickening blow with an Ishant bouncer following him after pitching. He continued batting after a concussion test but soon played a limp pull to give Umesh Yadav a wicket. Ishant soon drew the seemingly overdue edge from Kayes to leave Bangladesh at 13 for 4.

Dangerous games continued as Rahim received a glancing blow in the head from Yadav. With so many blows to the heads and dropped catches, questions will be, and should be, asked if it had anything to do with the pink ball.

Rahim, though, waved his physio off, raising questions over concussion protocols in cricket. The way he continued to bat it didn't seem he was suffering from one, though. Mahmudullah, too, batted fluently despite struggles against the short ball. Both of them chose to attack, and they had plenty of opportunity to do so with the aggressive fields in place.

When they took the innings into the 14th over, Mahmudullah and Rahim had put together Bangladesh's longest partnership of the match. It didn't stop there. Boundaries kept flowing. Movement died out, India's lengths became shorter, and the ball kept skidding across the dewy outfield. Mahmudullah, however, had to retire hurt for 39 off 41. The ease with which the two batted, though, begged the question: why weren't the side's two best batsmen batting higher and taking more responsibility, especially in the absence of Shakib Al Hasan and Tamim Iqbal.

Now India were forced to go to spin after only one over of it in the first innings, that too to facilitate a change of ends. R Ashwin immediately produced a chance, but Rahane dropped an easy chance at slip, his fourth off the bowling of Ashwin in this series. Ishant came back to get rid of the reprieved batsman Mehidy Hasan, and just before stumps Yadav ended Taijul's resistance. India are still on their way to a comfortable win, but Rahim had managed to make them wait for another night.

The NBA is engaged in serious discussions with the National Basketball Players Association and broadcast partners on sweeping and dramatic changes to the league calendar that would include a reseeding of the four conference finalists, a 30-team in-season tournament and a postseason play-in, league sources told ESPN.

These scenarios would include the shortening of the regular season to a minimum of 78 games, league sources said.

Discussions are progressing with hopes of bringing a vote to the April meeting of the league's Board of Governors that would introduce some -- if not all -- of these proposals into the NBA's 75th anniversary season of 2021-22, league sources said. The NBA still has work to do coordinating with constituents on the myriad implications involving the proposed changes.

The reseeding of teams in the semifinal round based on regular-season record could give the NBA a championship series that includes its best two teams. The WNBA has been seeding teams in the playoffs without regard to conference for several seasons.

Commissioner Adam Silver has been driving this agenda of change -- especially the in-season tournament cup modeled after European soccer -- for years. The NBA is selling the idea of lucrative television and sponsorship revenue that would drive long-term growth and combat stagnation in a rapidly splintering consumer environment.

The league is working to make sure the loss of revenue for teams and players with a shortened regular season would be break even or better initially, with significant financial windfalls in the long term.

The NBA cannot implement these changes without an agreement with the NBPA, and those talks have been ongoing between groups led by Silver and NBPA executive director Michele Roberts, league sources said.

In proposals that include adoption of in-season tournaments and post-season play-in, the traditional regular season schedule would be reduced from 82 games -- with most teams scheduled to play 78 or 79 games. There's an extremely limited possibility of a team playing a maximum of 83 games based on on possible tournament and play-in scenarios, league sources said. For the in-season tournament, the NBA is focused on 30-team participation that begins with a divisional group stage of scheduled regular-season games.

Those pre-knockout round games will be part of the regular-season schedule. Six divisional winners -- based on home and away records in the group stage -- and teams with the next two best records would advance to a single-elimination knockout round, league sources said.

Those teams could each potentially compete in the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals.

Proposals exist that would compensate players and coaches for advancing in and winning the tournament, league sources said. Even with possible passage, the NBA has no illusions that it will get the entire league to make an immediate enthusiastic commitment to the importance of competing for an in-season tournament championship, but it does believe that would come with time and tradition.

The NBA and NBPA are finding common ground on a post-Thanksgiving tournament window that would extend into mid-December, league sources said. Months ago, the NBA had proposed a late January-February tournament that would culminate with a Final Four during All-Star weekend, sources said. That idea faded fast. Both the union and team executives expressed concern over that idea. The NBPA was resistant to shortening players' All-Star breaks and requiring some to potentially participate in the in-season tournament and All-Star weekend.

Teams were concerned that roster turnover at the early February trade deadline and ensuing buyout/waiver window could compromise the integrity of the tournament.

As for timing, there was uncertainty whether holding the tournament in January would risk losing viewership and media attention to the NFL playoffs. Running into March would mean competing with college basketball. The post-Thanksgiving window gives the NBA the chance to compete against only conference bowl championships and less consequential early bowl games.

The NBA has been hesitant about shoehorning tournament games onto the Christmas Day schedule; the league (and its network partners, including ESPN and ABC) wants to make sure every Christmas game features elite teams and franchises from the biggest markets.

The play-in proposal is this: two four-team tournaments featuring the seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th seeds in each conference. The seventh seed would host the eighth seed, with the winner of that single game earning the seventh spot, league sources said.

The ninth seed would host the 10th seed, with the winner of that game facing the loser of the 7-versus-8 matchup for the final playoff spot.

Roberts and staff have been discussing league proposals extensively at the NBPA level and recently began bringing details of the league's calendar proposals to the broader membership on a team-by-team basis, sources said. Roberts and union officials meet with all 30 teams over the course of each regular season. These sessions with players are starting to take shape. As a high-ranking source said, "So far, there's been no real pushback."

For the NBA to achieve its goal of implementation of the proposed changes for the 2021-22 anniversary season, there's a clock on finding a framework that works for the teams, union and television partners before the April meeting of the Board of Governors, league sources said. Talks are ongoing, but legitimate and serious traction is emerging for dramatic change for the future of the NBA.

ESPN draft analyst Jonathan Givony contributed to this story.

SYLVANIA, Ga. – Chris Ferguson pocketed $5,000 for winning Friday’s Ultimate Super Late Model Series main event at Screven Motor Speedway.

Ferguson used a slide job on the 35th circuit to take the lead from Zack Mitchell, which caused Mitchell to go spinning. Ferguson then drove to a 3.172-second victory over Mitchell, who claimed the series championship with a runner-up finish.

Jeff Smith was third, followed by Cla Knight and Kyle Hardy.

Ches Chester won the companion Fastrak Racing Series late model feature.

The finish:

Chris Ferguson, Zack Mitchell, Jeff Smith, Cla Knight, Kyle Hardy, Brian Connor, Matthew Nance, Daulton Wilson, G.R. Smith, Scott Shirey, John Henderson, Brandon Overton, Joshua Bishop, Anthony Sanders, Michael Brown, Kenny Collins, Pearson Lee Williams, Doug Sanders, Tommy Jones, Dalton Cook.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Jon Rahm moved into a strong position to win the Race to Dubai title after shooting 6-under 66 in the third round of the season-ending World Tour Championship to tie the lead with Mike Lorenzo-Vera on Saturday.

Lorenzo-Vera bogeyed the 18th hole for the second straight day to shoot 69 and drop into a share of the lead with Rahm, who needs to finish first or second to stand a chance of becoming European No. 1 for the first time.

They are 15 under par overall, two strokes ahead of Rory McIlroy (65) and four clear of fourth-place Tommy Fleetwood (70) - another Race to Dubai contender.

Bernd Wiesberger, who leads the Race to Dubai standings, is tied for 24th place - 13 strokes behind Rahm and Lorenzo-Vera - after shooting 73.

Rahm can take the title if he wins and Wiesberger finishes lower than solo second, or if he finishes solo second and Wiesberger finishes worse than tied for fifth place with one other player.

Arturo Vidal struck 11 minutes from time to earn Barcelona a 2-1 victory away at Leganes on Saturday.

Manager Ernesto Valverde has been under pressure since last season's Champions League semifinal exit to Liverpool and, despite sitting in first place, they only narrowly avoided dropping points for fifth time in 13 matches.

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Youssef En-Nesyri opened the scoring for Leganes in superb fashion on 12 minutes when he fired in a superb effort from the right hand side of the box.

There was a potentially significant moment just after the half hour mark when Sergio Busquets picked up a booking for a foul on Roque Mesa which rules him out of the mammoth clash away to Atletico Madrid.

Barcelona went into half-time behind but were level on 53 minutes when Luis Suarez powered home a header from Lionel Messi's free kick.

With Barca pushing for a winner, Valverde opted to take off Antoine Greizmann just before the hour mark and replace him with Vidal. And it proved to be a decisive change.

On 79 minutes, Vidal fumbled home from close range and, following a consultation with the VAR, the goal stood and Barca took home all three points.

Britain's richest man, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, has said it would be "dumb money" to buy Manchester United -- the team he supported as a boy -- after claiming that the club have "lost the plot" since Sir Alex Ferguson retired as manager in 2013.

Ratcliffe, who is worth a reported £20 billion following the success of Ineos, his multi-national chemicals company, bought Ligue 1 club Nice for €110m in August after exploring moves for Chelsea, Newcastle and Leeds United.

But speaking to The Times, Ratcliffe said he did not consider United because "[Ineos] never wants to be the dumb money in town, never, never."

"Not at the moment, no," Ratcliffe said, when asked about buying United. "They are in quite a big pickle as a business.

"They haven't got the manager selection right, haven't bought well. They have been the dumb money, which you see with players like Fred.

"We won't look elsewhere until we have had a good run here [at Nice]. We need to find out how to be successful before you ever want to write a big cheque. It's quite difficult.

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"United have spent an immense amount since Ferguson left and been poor, to put it mildly. Shockingly poor, to be honest.

"We have a different approach here to be moderately intelligent about it. Try to do it more grass roots, trying to locate young talent.

"Some clubs seem to have an ability to do that, Southampton, Lille. United have done it really poorly. They have lost the plot there somehow."

Ratcliffe toured Chelsea's Cobham training ground while considering a move to buy the Roman Abramovich-owned club, but he said the valuations of Premier League clubs was another barrier to buying an English team.

"You quickly get into some pretty stratospheric numbers," he added. "And even though clubs have those valuations today, nobody has ever paid those amounts of money.

"How much did Abramovich pay for Chelsea, £100m? The Glazers [at United], what £500m? You can say it's worth three, four billion but no one has ever paid those sums.

"Ineos has always tried to take a sensible approach. We don't like squandering money or we wouldn't be where we are today. It's part of our DNA, trying to spend sensibly."

Chicago Bulls leading scorer Zach LaVine says he senses a lack of trust from coach Jim Boylen after the guard was temporarily pulled in the first quarter of Friday's loss to the Miami Heat.

"I'm trying my best, I'll say that," LaVine told Yahoo Sports after the 116-108 loss to the Heat. "I'm playing my minutes and trying to do the best I can do. It's tough, especially when you're in a rut. If he doesn't trust me, it's hard to trust someone who doesn't trust you."

Boylen removed LaVine midway through the first quarter after the Bulls fell behind 13-0. LaVine stayed out for more than five minutes before returning to the floor.

"I just pulled him. Not combative. Guys know. Zach LaVine and Lauri Markkanen and our starters got to play better for us to become what we can become. That's how it works," Boylen told reporters. "I want him to be a two-way player. That's what I want him to be."

LaVine said he thought he was used as the scapegoat for the Bulls' struggles.

"I guess I was to blame for it," LaVine told reporters. "I've gotten pulled early before by him. I guess that's just his thing to do. Just got to take it in stride. I'm not the coach."

"If he doesn't trust me, it's hard to trust someone who doesn't trust you."

Zach LaVine

He expanded on his thoughts to Yahoo Sports, saying everyone around the team -- including the coaching staff -- needs to improve and that Boylen shouldn't single out players.

LaVine said he will try to build the trust back up with Boylen or at least find a middle ground.

"We talk a lot. We need to have a sit-down talk? Maybe. Maybe we should," LaVine said. "I think he's a direct guy. We'll figure out a time and place to do it and see where we see eye to eye at."

The 5-11 Bulls face the Charlotte Hornets on Saturday.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart says NBA players are "gonna end up protecting ourselves eventually" in altercations with fans after he got tangled up with a spectator during Friday's game against the Denver Nuggets.

In the fourth quarter, Smart fell into the front row of fans at the Pepsi Center while chasing a loose ball. When he got up, he exchanged words with a fan nearby.

"My foot got stuck in a chair, and the fan told me, 'That's right, stay on the ground, get on your knees,'" Smart said after the Celtics' 96-92 loss. "Excuse me? You know what I'm saying. I just told him, 'Listen, just watch the game.'"

Smart said he was not satisfied by the security response after he pointed the fan out.

"I told them who it was. They just looked at him and didn't even say anything to him," Smart said. "... Probably if I was a superstar, they probably would've did something for it. It is what it is.

"We're gonna end up protecting ourselves eventually, and it's not gonna be pretty for those fans. We don't want that, the league doesn't want that, we don't want that as players, but at some point you have stand up and you gotta protect yourself as a man."

Video showed staff members talking to fans in the area of the incident, but no action was taken.

The Nuggets told The Denver Post that security looked into the incident but could not determine what happened.

In college at Oklahoma State, Smart was suspended for three games in February 2014 when he shoved a Texas Tech fan. Smart had told Cowboys coaches the fan called him a racial slur, ESPN reported at the time.

Smart said he will look to move on from his latest incident but noted that player/fan altercations are ongoing issue.

"That's a problem in the league that we gotta fix, because if we retaliate to protect ourselves, we're the ones getting in trouble -- they're not -- and that's not right," he said.