Los Angeles  - The lowly Washington Wizards haven't had many highs this season, but they seem to rise to the occasion against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Caron Butler scored 25 points, Antawn Jamison had 19 and the Wizards regrouped after blowing a 14-point lead to snap the Cavaliers' franchise-best 13-game winning streak, with a 109-101 home-court victory on Thursday night.

Durban, Apr 3 : Australian captain Ricky Ponting is sure that pacer Mitchell Johnson's bone-breaking powers will be playing on Graeme Smith's mind when the South African skipper returns to open in the first one-day international being played here today.

Left-armer Johnson fractured Smith's left hand's little finger in the Sydney Test match in January, and two Tests later in Durban he completed the double, cracking the opening batsman's right hand little finger.

London, Apr 3: Cricket bible Wisden has broken with 120 years of tradition by naming a woman as one of its players of the year.

England women’s star batsman Claire Taylor has been selected along with four male players as the magazine’s Five Cricketers of the Year for 2009.

It is the first time since the highly respected accolade started in 1889 that it has been conferred on a female player, the Daily Express reports.

Sepang, Malaysia  - Nico Rosberg lead Williams to dominate the first training for the Malaysia Grand Prix on Friday ahead of his teammate Kazuki Nakajima.

The 23-year-old German topped the timesheets at the 5.54-kilometre racetrack with 1:36.260 minutes, repeating his training dominance from last week's sessions ahead of the Melbourne race.

Melbourne winner Brawn GP's Jenson Button came in third at 1:36.305, his Brazilian team mate Rubens Barichello fourth, followed by Felipe Massa of Brazil and Finland's Kimi Raikkonen, both in Ferrari.

Miami  - Desperate Rafael Nadal saved two of three match points with aces but couldn't hold off the momentum of hard-charging Argentine Juan Del Potro, taking a 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7-3) defeat Thursday in the quarter-finals of the Miami Masters.

The three-hour epic handed Del Potro his first victory over Spain's number 1 after three previous defeats. The youngster had not won a single set in the series before stepping onto court in front of an overwhelmingly Latin crowd in South Florida.

Wellington (New Zealand), Apr. 2 : International Cricket Council (ICC) President David Morgan on Thursday ruled out the possibility of international cricket''s immediate return to Pakistan, but insisted that the trouble-torn country should not be isolated.

In the wake of the March 3 attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore, Morgan dismissed the possibility of any international assignments in Pakistan.