Victoria 341 and 1 for 17 trail Western Australia 9 for 519 dec (Marsh 214, Philippe, Inglis 58, Stoinis 56, Pattinson 4-117) by 161 runs

Shaun Marsh's career-best 214, his maiden double century, built Western Australia a commanding lead over Victoria on the third day at the WACA.

Marsh was unbeaten on 101 overnight and more than double his total before falling to James Pattinson as the home side declared 178 in front.

They were able to take a key wicket before bad light brought an early stumps, when Marcus Harris was squared up and edged to slip off Jhye Richardson, to leave Victoria facing a battle to secure a draw.

Josh Philippe, who added 142 with Marsh, and Josh Inglis contributed half-centuries after Western Australia had resumed on 4 for 256.

Marsh, who is captaining Western Australia following the broken hand suffered by his brother Mitchell, went past his previous best if 182 and reached the double from 409 balls with a boundary off Scott Boland.

He was eventually caught at slip off Pattinson who claimed some late reward for another day of toil for Victoria's quicks after the flat pitch they encountered at Junction Oval last week.

Ashton Agar was well caught in the gully by Glenn Maxwell and Richardson top edged his second ball to the keeper. On a day where Mitchell Starc took another four wickets, Pattinson ended with 4 for 117 in the race to be the third quick against Pakistan at the Gabba.

Papua New Guinea 197 for 7 (Ura 71, Vala 48, Frylinck 3-18, Viljoen 2-37) beat Namibia 116 (Vala 3-19) by 81 runs

PNG's biggest partnership in T20Is, between Tony Ura and Assad Vala, left Namibia battered and bruised and without an escape route, as they slid to an 81-run defeat at ICC Academy Oval 2 on Sunday. Ura and Man of the Match Vala added 125 in just 12.2 overs as they punished poor lengths from Namibia, who cycled through eight options with the ball but found little success.

The pair got off to a relatively quiet start, reaching 23 in three overs after opening the innings, before they plundered a trio of fours first off Christi Viljoen's medium pace in the fourth over and then in the sixth, bowled by captain Gerhard Erasmus. It wasn't until the eighth before the first six came, and Ura followed up the first with a second, in three balls off Pikky Ya France's offspin, and then cleared Bernard Scholtz straight for another in the ninth. A bottom-edged four past the keeper brought up his 50 in 30 balls in the tenth over, and then brought up the team 100 at the end of the over when he smoked a drive over extra cover off Craig Williams for his fourth six.

Viljoen struck twice in the space of three balls to finally send both players back to the pavilion - Vala hooking to deep square-leg two short of a fifty and Ura feathering an edge down the leg side for 71 - but the PNG opening combo had put Namibia well behind the eight ball. Sese Bau and Lega Siaka provided sharp bursts to keep the pressure on before Jan Frylinck's triple-wicket 19th applied a tourniquet to stop the bleeding, though the damage was already complete.

Early pressure from Nosaina Pokana with the new ball produced a wicket for Bau's new-ball offspin at the other end as Nico Davin gave a catch to mid-off in the fourth over. The desperation for quick runs resulted in the run out of JP Kotze two overs later as Bau struck again with an underhand flick at the striker's end after charging in from backward point. Williams was bowled two balls later for a duck by Norman Vanua before Erasmus pulled Damien Ravu's medium pace softly to Vala at short midwicket to complete a slide of three wickets for no runs in five balls.

Rather than try to mitigate their net run-rate hit with a victory becoming hopeless, Namibia continued to try to hit their way out of trouble only to spiral faster to defeat. Vala brought himself on and struck three times in four balls in the 12th: JJ Smit driving to long-on, Zane Green bowled playing back to a good length ball and Zhivago Groenewald missing a flick across the line to have his stumps rattled as well to make it 86 for 7.

A deflection on to the stumps by Riley Hekure to run out non-striker Bernard Scholtz for the final wicket summed up the day for both sides as Namibia failed to bat out their final 17 balls. It resulted in a crushing net run-rate blow to 0-2 Namibia and a massive boost on the tie-break formula for 2-0 PNG.

South Africa 9 for 2 (Shami 1-0, Umesh 1-4) trail India 497 (Rohit 212, Rahane 115, Linde 4-133) by 488 runs

It's difficult to see this Test match developing any differently to the previous two in this series. India have done what they did in Visakhapatnam and Pune, piling on the runs, although they declared when the total was under 500 in Ranchi. South Africa have done what they did at those venues too, by bowling inconsistently, conceding heavily and then being handicapped in response. At 8 for 2, this is their worst start yet and, barring something truly special, it appears only a matter of time before they are whitewashed.

Rohit Sharma, the star of India's innings, enhanced his reputation further after scoring two centuries in his first Test as an opener in Visakhapatnam. Rohit doubled up in Ranchi, to become the third double-centurion in the series for India, surpassing 500 runs for the series. He also took his batting average at home up to 99.84, just above Don Bradman's 98.22.

Shining alongside him were Ajinkya Rahane, who brought up his first hundred at home since 2016, Ravindra Jadeja, who added a second half-century at No.6 and Umesh Yadav, whose 31 off 10 balls allowed Virat Kohli to declare in time to let India's quicks loose on South Africa's openers.

Mohammed Shami and Yadav only got an over each in fading light but bounced out South Africa's openers to put the visitors under pressure immediately.

Full report to follow...

HOUSTON -- Adjacent to the smoky, boozy hazmat area that was the Houston Astros' clubhouse is a dining room of a culinarian's dreams. Walls of food, drink, anything to sate a player's appetite surround wooden tables. There are freshly prepared meals too sitting in chafing dishes, the contents of which are written on a dry-erase board. Just past midnight early Sunday morning, an addendum joined that night's menu. The lower left-hand corner of the board featured the most delicious three words imaginable:

WORLD
SERIES
BOUND

Amid the partying, only one person sat in the room. He wore a commemorative hat announcing the Astros as champions of the American League and snow goggles to shield his eyes from the showers his teammates had tried to give him. Jose Altuve was all alone, which is how he likes to spend the aftermath of such celebrations. A man can take only so many hugs, backslaps and congratulations in the MLB playoffs before he seeks a moment of solitude.

So, Altuve slipped into the dining area and kept to himself for a few minutes of peace and quiet. An hour earlier, he had launched a home run epic even for him. Bottom of the ninth inning, Game 6 of the American League Championship Series, the indomitable Aroldis Chapman on the mound, the New York Yankees in the field and elated by a game-tying home run a half-inning earlier that threatened to send the series to a win-or-go-home seventh game.

Chapman offered a slider that slid too little. Altuve swung. The rest was, literally, history: a pennant-winning home run launched deep in the heart of Texas, a 6-4 victory that sent the Astros to a World Series showdown against the Washington Nationals, a crowd of 43,357 at Minute Maid Park screaming in ecstasy yet rendered speechless by the game's most anomalous player.

Altuve's achievements are reliably viewed through the prism of his height of 5-foot-6, a narrative he dutifully flips on its head. By now, greatness is old hat, Altuve stepping onto the October stage and doing magical things. This, however, wasn't something different so much as it was him one-upping himself, as if being a generationally great player isn't enough.

"People ask me about him, and I say he's a giant in every sense of the word except for his height," Astros teammate Justin Verlander said. "In everything else, he's 7-foot tall. Teammate. Baseball player. Everything."

Nobody defines the Astros quite like Altuve. He endured three consecutive 100-plus-loss seasons, now bookended by three straight 100-plus-win campaigns. He did it having signed for $15,000, having done nothing but hit until he was summoned to the major leagues at age 21, having grown from a contact-oriented sort into a menace.

"To be honest," said Yankees infielder DJ LeMahieu, who had tied the game only to see Altuve untie it, "I never feel good when we're on defense and he comes to the plate. But it's not just us, the Yankees. I think every team feels like that."

They feel that way because they've seen it too many times now -- Altuve and the Astros ruining their season and others' in search of something audacious and achievable, simultaneously.

"We're just a group of guys," Astros third baseman Alex Bregman said, "ready to make a dynasty in Houston."

The day Houston clinched the pennant started with a nap. The Astros returned from the Bronx weary and groggy and in need of sleep. The Yankees had won Game 5, ambushing Verlander in the first inning. The rainout of Game 4 had wiped away a planned off day. Both teams would use bullpen arms only on Sunday, a game theorist's dream, tactics paramount. Before they boarded the plane home, right-hander Brad Peacock learned he would be starting for Houston, becoming the first pitcher in nearly 100 years to pitch the final inning of one postseason game and start the next day. Even if his arm was going on zero days of rest, his body needed some, so he decided to sleep at Minute Maid in the Astros' designated nap room.

"It's quiet, dark, cold," Peacock said. "It was freezing. I could've gone home, but I've got two kids at home, and I wanted to get some sleep."

He went to bed at 5:30 a.m. and awoke at 10:30. Soon thereafter, his teammates started to file in. The Game 5 loss hadn't addled their psyches. Calmness defined the Astros throughout their 107-win season. No team possessed the talent they do -- not in their rotation, with Verlander, Gerrit Cole and Zack Greinke, and not in a lineup that features Altuve and Bregman and George Springer and Michael Brantley and Yuli Gurriel and Carlos Correa and Yordan Alvarez, a wrecking crew of the highest order.

An hour before first pitch, Peacock sat at a table with Verlander, reliever Joe Smith and outfielder Jake Marisnick deep into a session of pluck, a card game. Outfielder Josh Reddick sat at his locker playing Fortnite. Like Altuve, a been-here, done-this vibe pervades the Astros' clubhouse. Their World Series ring from 2017 is their receipt.

The first inning did nothing to dissuade that notion. Peacock mowed through the Yankees' top three hitters in seven pitches. Altuve doubled, Bregman walked and Gurriel yanked a three-run home run off the Yankees' opener, Chad Green. Throughout the series, Houston had rope-a-doped New York's bullpen, taxing it and wearing it down and hoping eventually it would offer mistakes on which they would pounce. It did. They did. After a series of sputtering offense, the Astros reminded the Yankees who they were with urgency and immediacy.

"If I'm not back in Houston, I won't be back in the AL," said Wade Miley, the Astros' pitcher who will be a free agent this offseason. "Because I don't ever want to have to face this lineup. I'm out."

What makes Houston so fearsome isn't simply the offense or the starting pitching or a bullpen deep enough for AJ Hinch to call upon seven pitchers and never once believe he was at a distinct matchup disadvantage, even against a Yankees lineup formidable in its own right. The Astros play a gorgeous brand of baseball. Twice earlier in the series, the Yankees cut down Astros runners trying to score at the plate. Rather than walk into a tag and easy out, the runners goaded Yankees fielders into pickles, allowing the two other runners on base to advance to second and third. It's not the little things with the Astros; it's the minuscule ones.

It's Reddick diving in the sixth inning to steal a Brett Gardner liner with runners on first and second, preserving a 4-2 lead. It's Brantley an inning later laying out in left field to rob Aaron Hicks, gathering himself and firing a strike to double Aaron Judge off first base. It's a double play an inning after that in which Altuve flipped to shortstop Correa, who fired a 95 mph strike to first base. It's doing everything right so that when things go wrong they're not catastrophic.

Granted, the Astros weren't exactly elated when, with only two outs separating them from the pennant, LeMahieu capped a brilliant 10-pitch at-bat against Astros closer Roberto Osuna with an opposite-field home run just past the outstretched arm of Springer in right field. The Yankees, the savages in the box, had tied the game at 4 and had Chapman, their closer, ready to send the game into extra innings.

Chapman struck out Martin Maldonado and popped up Reddick, his fastball kissing 101 mph. Then, with Springer at the plate, he lost his fastball. He missed one badly, then another to walk Springer. He sailed two more high and outside against Altuve, before spinning a get-me-over slider. Altuve anticipated another. The ball bounced off the facade in left field, over the yellow line of delineation for a home run.

"You make sure the ball is gone before you celebrate," Altuve said. "Then I'm thinking, 'We're going to the World Series.'"

The crowd couldn't contain itself. How giddy were they? A few minutes after the home run, Houston Rockets stars Russell Westbrook and James Harden walked through a lobby full of people. Nobody stopped them. Fans were too busy celebrating. Three men sloppily shouted and hugged and moved toward a bank of cushioned benches arranged in a circle. One reclined, assuming the benches were backed. They weren't. The man fell into the middle. As he peeled himself off the floor, not a care in the universe, he slurred the same thing Altuve said: "We're going to the World Series."

Two pieces of rectangular, silver confetti had attached themselves to Jose Altuve, one on his forehead, the other in his beard. Even when he tries to avoid it, the celebration has a way of finding him.

Altuve was on the field as family members of Astros players arrived to revel. He looked toward the tunnel from which they were coming. Then he looked right and left. Finally, there she was, right in front of him: his daughter, Melanie, who will turn 3 soon, running into her daddy's arms. He hugged her and beamed and now could enjoy the moment properly, his girl a far greater prize than his ALCS MVP trophy.

"It's not easy to deliver the way he does," Hinch said. "The playoff version of him is spectacular. We talk about his division series homers and then his attention to detail in every facet of the game. He's turned himself into a star in his career here, and yet he's remained humble, he's remained hungry. He's driven. He's engaging with his teammates.

"It's the same old quote of: Everything that's right about the Astros is Jose Altuve. He's been here the longest and seen this organization grow from the ground up. I'm so proud of him. I'm so fortunate to be his manager."

All the talk about Altuve makes him uncomfortable. The humility is real. As the summer waned and Altuve started putting up MVP-quality numbers again, he would tell opposing first basemen that he felt like he was slipping and that he was just happy to still be here. Altuve is 29 years old. He is more than halfway to 3,000 hits already. He finished with a career-high 31 home runs this year. If this is a bad version of himself, it's frightening to think what he would look like when he's good.

Actually, the answer is ... this. This is exactly what the best version of Altuve looks like. It is his embrace of the big moments -- the hunger for them. It is the fifth walk-off home run in LCS history, joining those of Chris Chambliss, Magglio Ordonez, Travis Ishikawa and the manager in the opposing dugout Saturday night, Aaron Boone. Amid the party in the clubhouse, Bregman and Cole were talking about the wonder of Altuve looking for a slider from Chapman, who throws his fastball nearly 70% of the time. "Two-one?" said Cole, one of the game's foremost pitch sequencers. "I'm looking fastball down and in."

"That's why he's special," Bregman said.

Bregman couldn't stop marveling at Altuve, at the entire scene. After getting dismantled by the Boston Red Sox in the ALCS last year -- a series in which Altuve played hurt and after which he required knee surgery -- Houston returned reinvigorated and reloaded. That dynasty talk? It's not just talk, something at which Bregman is as good as anyone. It's warranted.

First, the Astros need to take care of the Nationals, whose starting pitching goes toe-to-toe with Houston's better than any team in baseball. Max Scherzer will oppose Cole in Game 1. Stephen Strasburg will match up against Verlander in Game 2. Patrick Corbin will counter Zack Greinke in Game 3.

After its dynamic regular season and division series win against a dangerous Tampa Bay Rays team and proof of its mettle against the Yankees, Houston is banking on dispatching the Nationals in tidy fashion.

With the clubhouse nearly cleared out, the bottles empty and the cigars burning to nubs, Bregman approached Verlander with a question.

"How many games you gonna win in the World Series?" Bregman asked.

"I'll take just one," Verlander said.

Drew Ginn's first significant move as the new high-performance supremo for Cricket Australia has been to sever a key link to the Pat Howard era by moving on Darren Holder, the Brisbane-based elite coaching manager who had helped the governing body take a top-down approach to the way the nation's best cricketers were mentored over the past five years.

Under Howard, some states paid far closer attention to the approaches and instructions of CA than others, with Victoria and Tasmania - where Ginn was the head of high performance for two years - among the two most vocal conscientious objectors.

Holder, who was informed of the decision to make him redundant shortly after the conclusion of the Ashes series, had helmed numerous projects geared at developing coaches at both national and domestic levels, with his ideas not always taken to kindly by the state associations.

He was instrumental in projects like an American study tour last year, when the national men's coach Justin Langer, men's Test captain Tim Paine, plus Howard and former CA chief executive James Sutherland spent time with organisations such as Chicago Cubs and Dallas Cowboys.

Another of Holder's initiatives was to help link up Langer with American coaching expert and academic Wade Gilbert, who offered a useful perspective to the new coach and his support staff last year when they were finding their feet in the wake of the Newlands scandal.

As recently as May this year, Holder had hosted a high-performance coaching conference at the National Cricket Centre in which the likes of Dan Cullen, Jono Dean, Jodie Fields, Alex Pyecroft and Clive Rose were taken through a week of lectures and training sessions.

Nevertheless, CA chief executive Kevin Roberts had made plain that the governing body would be taking a more federal and less prescriptive approach to all of its functions after last year's wide-ranging and ultimately damning cultural review, presented by The Ethics Centre, and Ginn's move is believed to have been welcomed by the state associations as a further indication that coaches will in future be schooled at domestic level before graduating to the national team.

Langer himself was an embodiment of this, having coached Western Australia for six years prior to replacing Darren Lehmann, while the promotion of Tasmania coach Adam Griffith to be a key lieutenant and bowling coach during this year's World Cup campaign in England was another.

Ben Oliver, who took over as the head of national teams when Howard's former role was split in two, is seeking out replacement assistant coaches for David Saker and Brad Haddin, who left Langer's side in February and September respectively. Michael Hussey and Ryan Harris are set to be part of the coaching staff for the T20Is against Sri Lanka and Pakistan, while former West Indies and South Africa coach Ottis Gibson is reportedly in the running to be Langer's assistant on a longer-term basis.

With CA currently also on the lookout for a selector to join Langer and Trevor Hohns - out of contract next year - on the national panel, Roberts has said that closer relationships and better communication between CA and the states was vital, something that applies as much to coaches as it does to selectors and state and national levels.

"The main thing I would say is certain is that we need to deepen the links through the state system and domestic competitions and make sure that we've got the best possible view of all players who are in contention to play," Roberts said last month. "What sort of form are they in, how's their physical health, how's their mental well-being. That's a key consideration these days in all walks of life and the same certainly goes for players.

"One of the benefits of splitting the old role and having Ben Oliver playing the national teams role and Drew Ginn the high-performance role working with the states is Drew can then work with the states and make sure we've got a very clear overview of the top 'x' number of players, their position in terms of form, physical and mental well-being and everything else that contributes to how they're going as a player. I'm really looking forward to that coming to fruition too."

Among Roberts' first moves when named as chief executive in place of Sutherland was to fire Howard and another senior executive in Ben Amarfio, by way of emphasising change in the organisation both internally and to the rest of the cricket community. By moving on Holder, Ginn has made a similar statement within the realm of high performance.

Melbourne Renegades 5 for 154 (Wyatt 61, Devine 2-32) beat Adelaide Strikers 5 for 152 (Devine 48, Brown 2-20) by five wickets

England batter Danni Wyatt produced a dazzling half-century to help the Melbourne Renegades to victory over the Adelaide Strikers at Karen Rolton Oval.

Wyatt struck 10 boundaries in her 61 from just 37 balls to set up a tricky chase of 153 after the Renegades lost Sophie Molineux first ball.

Wyatt shared an 83-run stand with fellow England batter Tammy Beaumont but, after Wyatt's dismissal, the chase nearly ran aground. Beaumont made 41 but took 44 balls in the process before she was adjudged lbw off Suzie Bates despite appearing to hit the ball onto her pad.

Claire Koski was run out, which also appeared to be a line-ball decision, with the Renegades still needing 32 from 23 balls.

Skipper Jess Duffin then took control finding the boundary six times in a skilful 26 from 15 balls to put the Renegades on the brink of victory. She fell with eight runs needed from 12 balls but Josie Dooley and Courtney Webb were able to get the required runs off Megan Schutt without taking the game into the last over.

Earlier, Strikers allrounder Sophie Devine threatened to take the game away from the Renegades as she did on Saturday as she and Bates combined for a 73-run opening stand. Devine crunched 48 off 30 balls including three fours and four sixes before she fell in the 10th over trying to clear the rope a fifth time. Bates was not as free-flowing at the other end and departed shortly after.

Tahlia McGrath and Bridget Patterson rebuilt with a 58-run stand. Patterson played well making 38 from 28 but the late-over bowling from Maitlan Brown, Georgia Wareham, and Molly Strano proved hard to get away.

The trio nabbed all five wickets between them and conceded just 71 runs from their 12 combined overs to give the Renegades an easier chase.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

HOUSTON -- One man's heaven can be another man's hell, as the New York Yankees may have learned after falling short once again in the American League Championship Series by losing to the Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park.

The Yankees' improbable 2019 playoff run ended abruptly Saturday night with a 6-4 loss to the Astros in Game 6 of the ALCS, the same stage where they were eliminated two years ago. Counting Houston's wild-card win over New York in 2015, the Astros have eliminated the Yankees from the postseason three out of the past five years.

"I feel like we are on equal footing with them. Unfortunately, sports can be a little bit cruel for the team that goes home and such can happen in the series," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. "But the work never ends. And we'll continue to try and I guess close that gap or put ourselves in a position to get over the hump. I know everyone in our room believes we will and we'll have a lot of battle scars when we do finally get to the top of that mountain."

A 103-win season, claiming the AL East for the first time since 2012, prevailing over an unprecedented rash of injuries, opening postseason play with a remarkable sweep of the Minnesota Twins, all meant nothing to the Yankees as they bowed out of the playoffs with a single swing from Jose Altuve off closer Aroldis Chapman.

"It's a failure," said a dejected Aaron Judge. "In spring training, we talked about winning the division and putting ourselves in a good spot in the postseason to win a World Series. We came up short. No matter how many games we won in the regular season or what else we did, this season is a failure."

The Astros return to the World Series, while the Yankees are left to rue the many missed opportunities they had in the ALCS, from failing multiple times with runners in scoring position -- their big bats disappearing when it mattered most -- to seeing their main strength, their bullpen, responsible for two walk-off losses.

For the first time since the 1910s, the 27-time world champions will finish their first calendar decade without a single appearance in the Fall Classic. This was the fourth time the Yankees lost a League Championship Series since last winning the World Series in 2009.

"This was very difficult. I never expected to have a series like that," said designated hitter Edwin Encarnacion, who batted .056 (1-for-18) with 11 strikeouts. "That loss really hurt us, and hurt a lot more for me, because we know we have a team that can win the World Series, and to lose the way we lost, and me underperforming the way I did, it's going to hurt me a lot for a long time."

The Astros took a first-inning lead on Yuli Gurriel's three-run home run off season-long bullpen stalwart Chad Green. The Yankees offense left eight men on base and had only one hit with runners in scoring position, only mounting a last-gasp rally in the ninth inning with a game-tying two-run homer from DJ LeMahieu before Altuve responded with a two-run home run of his own.

Brett Gardner, the last reminder of the Yankees' past glories, earning a ring as part of their last championship team back in 2009, gave credit to the Astros for outperforming them in the series.

"It's baseball. Obviously, DJ with a huge swing of the bat to tie the game back up. And then, just a rollercoaster right back down to the bottom in the bottom of the inning," said the 36-year-old outfielder, who may have worn pinstripes for the last time. "It's tough. It's a tough year. We fought as hard as we could all year long. This definitely isn't how we thought this would end. Even yesterday going into the game down 3-1, still felt good about our chances. It just didn't end up the way we wanted. We came up short."

It was an abrupt end for the Yankees, whose championship expectations were at an all-time high after their "Next Man Up" mantra got them through an injury-ridden season. They firmly believed they had a better team than the 2017 edition that lost to the Astros, and the one that was eliminated in the ALDS last year by the Red Sox.

The mighty Yankees bullpen also got "out-bullpenned" in Houston. The Yankees were 12-5 this season when they used an 'opener,' the best record in MLB, but were beaten at their own game in Game 6, with Green giving up three runs, and Chapman not being able to exorcise his postseason demons at Minute Maid Park in what was his second walk-off loss of the ALCS.

"When [Altuve] hit that, I couldn't believe it. I didn't think he could get a hit like that at that time, and walk us off in such a manner. But that's baseball. He's a great hitter and I didn't do my job. That's why we lost," Chapman said.

Now there will be no more talk of "Savages in the Box" or "Next Man Up" -- just an offseason to think about all the missed chances, including going 6-for-35 (.171) with runners in scoring position, and to ponder where it all went wrong.

"We just weren't able to capitalize on offense. Me especially. All series long," Judge added. "It's the biggest thing I look back on. That we left eight or nine in this game on base. Even throughout the whole series, we left a lot of guys on base and had a lot of missed opportunities. Houston capitalized on theirs. They got guys on base, they capitalized with a big homer or a big hit. That was the difference in the series."

Wales centre Jonathan Davies has been ruled out of the World Cup quarter-final against France with a knee injury.

Davies has aggravated the problem he suffered against Fiji and was a late withdrawal just 75 minutes before kick-off in Oita.

The 31-year-old is replaced by Owen Watkin who will partner Hadleigh Parkes in the centre.

Leigh Halfpenny takes Watkin's place on the replacements' bench.

A Welsh Rugby Union statement said: "Jonathan Davies has been removed from the match day 23 due to an aggravation of the knee injury he sustained in the game against Fiji.

"Owen Watkin starts at 13 with Leigh Halfpenny coming onto the bench."

There has been no indication yet from the WRU whether Davies will be ruled out for the rest of the tournament should Wales defeat France in the last eight.

Davies had trained all week with heavy strapping on his left leg but was selected on Friday in the starting side before aggravating the problem on Saturday.

Wales coach Warren Gatland told World Rugby in his pre-match interview: "Unfortunately Jonathan didn't get through yesterday's Captains Run, and then we checked him this morning and he wasn't fit."