South Africa hit a world record 438 for nine in cricket's highest-scoring one-day international in history to beat Australia by one wicket and win the series 3-2 in Johannesburg on Sunday.

In an extraordinary match, the home side's victory was achieved with a ball to spare and sparked wild celebrations on and off the Wanderers pitch.

Before Sunday, no side had scored more than 400 in a one-day international and South Africa's total topped Australia's record 434 for four earlier in the day.

Two players, Australian captain Ricky Ponting (164) and South African Herschelle Gibbs (175), scored more than 150. A total of 872 runs were scored. The previous record was 693 when India beat Pakistan by five runs in Karachi in March 2004. The previous innings record was the 398 for five Sri Lanka scored against Kenya in Kandy in 1995-96.

After winning the toss and choosing to bat, Ponting reached his century off 73 balls. In all he faced 105 deliveries, hitting 13 fours and nine sixes. Gibbs then kept the home side up with the required scoring rate by blazing 175, including seven sixes, off 111 balls. Captain Graeme Smith scored 90, putting on 187 for the second wicket with Gibbs.

Gibbs and Ponting were jointly awarded man of the match but Ponting declined it, saying Gibbs deserved the honour alone.

*Another fine spell of bowling by Anil Kumble, the newest member of the 500 club, put England in dire straits on Sunday as India took a strong grip on the second Test, writes Ted Corbett in Mohali.

Kumble, who joined Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan, Glenn McGrath and Courtney Walsh as the bowlers with more than 500 wickets at the end of England's first innings, took three for 41 to bring his match aggregate to eight wickets and England to their knees.

His clever mixture of flight and spin and his accuracy and narrow margin of error were too much for apprentice England batsmen still learning their trade.

First Kumble helped to build the Indian first innings lead to 38 with 34 to follow the 58 he made in the first Test. England lost their way when the substitute fielder Matt Prior dropped Kumble's spinning partner Harbhajan Singh and allowed a batsman with an average of just 15 to make an unexpected 36.

England lost opener Alastair Cook for two but then captain Rahul Dravid made the mistake of putting Harbhajan Singh on ahead of Kumble at the end he had used so successfully in the first innings.

When that error was corrected, Kumble carved a hole in the England batting line-up which means they will start the final day with a lead of 74 with just five wickets standing.

*If the opening grand prix of the season is anything to go by, this is likely to be the most hotly contested F1 world championship for more than 20 years, writes James Allen in Bahrain.

Fernando Alonso beat Michael Schumacher in a straight fight but the winning margin, just 1.2 seconds after 57 laps of racing, indicates how closely matched the Renault and Ferrari are on pace. That the final podium place was won by McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen, who started from 22nd place on the grid after a suspension failure in qualifying, shows how deep the competition goes. To complete the picture, Honda's Jenson Button finished less than a second behind Raikkonen, after a poor start and problems with traffic on his pit stops.

Pre-season predictions appear to have been right, with four teams capable of winning any of the 18 grands prix between now and the end of October.

This was a tremendous race on many levels: 20-year-old debutant Nico Rosberg caught the eye with a stunning drive to seventh in the Williams, but there was action throughout the field.

Schumacher led the early stages from pole position. Alonso gave chase, but the reigning world champion did not appear to have the pace of the Ferrari in the opening stint. Meanwhile Button, who had started third, dropped to sixth and had to fight his way back up to third, with some spellbinding overtaking moves, particularly on McLaren's Juan Pablo Montoya.

With such evenly matched cars and drivers, the winning edge was always going to come from race strategy. Renault had the edge here, with Alonso's car fuelled to go five laps longer than Schumacher's. This meant that the Renault strategists could watch Schumacher's first stop and tailor their own strategy accordingly. A small trim to the front wing seemed to give Alonso more speed in the second stint and he was able to follow Schumacher closely.

The decisive moment came at Alonso's second pit stop. The Renault mechanics turned him round very quickly and when Alonso rejoined the race, he was a matter of only a few metres ahead of the Ferrari, but it was enough to give the Spaniard track position. From then on it required Schumacher to try a desperate lunge to pass. But he was not willing to risk eight points and a glorious comeback for Ferrari after a dismal 2005 season,

*That strange rumbling sound you may have heard on Sunday afternoon has a simple explanation. It was the laughter echoing from New Zealand, South Africa, Australia and Argentina as the southern hemisphere's leading rugby union nations contemplated the state of the European contenders 18 months ahead of the World Cup, writes Huw Richards at the Stade de France.

The RBS 6 Nations championship's fourth round finished with France in control after a 31-6 victory over England. A win in Cardiff next week will be enough to give them the title unless Ireland can beat England heavily enough to erase France's 28-point edge.

There is every chance France will take the title without ever playing well. They were not remotely as good as the final scoreline suggested, although England were every bit as bad.

The French had a flying start, running up a 13-point lead inside 10 minutes. Centre Florian Fritz crossed within 40 seconds after England allowed a high kick to drop inside their 22-metre line and Dimitri Yachvili, scorer of 37 points in his last two matches against the English, added the conversion plus two penalties.

France then dozed off, perhaps because England were not good enough to make them concentrate. It looked briefly as though they might even let England back into contention as Charlie Hodgson and replacement Andy Goode landed penalties either side of half-time to cut the deficit to 16-6.

France put them out of their misery in the final 10 minutes as Damien Traille and Christophe Dominici scored tries and Yachvili took his tally with the boot to 16 points.

Ireland won the weekend's other title eliminator, beating Scotland 15-9 in Lans-downe Road's final match before its overhaul, amid conditions atrocious even by Dublin standards. Ireland's dominance was built on control of the line-out, driven home after the break by Ronan O'Gara's tactical kicking.

While it would be typically Irish to take the title when for the first time in years no one was tipping them pre-season, their hopes will rest on getting some help from a Welsh team incapable of helping themselves. A second consecutive shambolic performance since skills coach Scott Johnson took over from Grand Slam winner Mike Ruddock saw them fortunate to hang on for an 18-18 draw at home to Italy, who avoided defeat away for the first time since joining the Six Nations in 2000.*A good day for Sir Alex Ferguson. After Manchester United's easy victory over Newcastle, he saw Liverpool, their closest challengers for automatic qualification for the Champions League, beaten 2-1 at Arsenal. Arsène Wenger's side probably deserved the win but it took a dreadful backpass from Steven Gerrard to give it to them, writes Jonathan Wilson at Highbury.

When Luis Garcia nodded in the rebound after Jens Lehmann had fisted away Steven Gerrard's piledriver with 15 minutes left, Liverpool seemed the more likely to grab a winner. Within six minutes, though, they had lost Xabi Alonso to an unfortunate red card, and by the 83rd minute they were behind.

Alonso deserved his first booking, for a late challenge on Cesc Fabregas, perhaps born out of frustration at how well the 18-year-old was playing, but his second seemed harsh. As Mathieu Flamini cleared, he checked his challenge, only to stumble and fall into the Frenchman. Referee Steve Bennett, though, presumably seeing only the impact, flashed a second yellow card.

That was bad enough, but two minutes later Gerrard, playing a backpass blind, let in Thierry Henry. His hands were clasped desperately to his head even before Henry sidestepped José Reina and rolled in the winner. "I saw at the time he hadn't noticed me," Henry said. "I gambled, but I gamble every game and this is only the second time it's worked for me."

Henry's first goal came from a through-ball of similar quality, but played by a team-mate, Fabregas threading a gorgeous pass through a thicket of players, allowing Henry to advance into the left side of the box before bending his finish inside Reina's left-hand post.

For the most part this was a disappointing game, strewn with loose passing and squandered chances. Peter Crouch's miss from Steve Finnan's cross on the half-hour was inexcusable. However, Arsenal were the more profligate: Henry twice, Robert Pires and Emmanuel Adebayor all missing good chances.

The win lifts Arsenal to within two points of Tottenham in fourth, but the big winners were United, who, thanks to Wayne Rooney's double in a 2-0 win over Newcastle, are five points clear in second, with a game in hand.