Johannesburg, Feb 22 : Australian Vice-Captain Michael Clarke is likely to be ruled out of the first Test match against South Africa due to a serious back injury. The first Test match will start on Thursday.

Admitting the spasms and discomfort, Clarke had a couple of net sessions instead of playing a tour match against South Africa Board President's XI at Senwes Park.

His unavailability for the first Test match would be serious blow for Kangaroos who have lost their number one spot in recent times.

Johannesburg - In a few hours time, a man will be lowered from the side of an office building in Cape Town, where he will have spent six days and five nights high above ground, ib a makeshift ledge.

Trevor Johnston will clamber out, stretch his sore limbs and take a running dive into the Atlantic Ocean, the sight of whose sparkling waters have been torturing him since he began his gruelling stay in the sky on Monday morning.

Johannesburg - South Africa's Congress of the People (COPE) has picked a Methodist bishop to lead the party in upcoming elections against the scandal-plagued ruling African National Congress (ANC), the party said Friday.

COPE's choice of Bishop Mvume Dandala to be the face of the party in the April 22 polls is seen as an attempt by the party to position itself as a more moral party than the ANC.

ANC leader Jacob Zuma stands accused of corruption and fraud in relation to a 1990s arms deal. He is due to go on trial after the election, in August.

Johannesburg  - Tickets for the 2010 football World Cup in South Africa go on sale Friday 475 days before kick-off in the opening game on June 11 next year.

The tickets are being sold on the website of world football body FIFA and through South Africa's First National Bank (FNB), a sponsor of the tournament.

Football fans in South Africa can being applying for tickets at FNB branches nationwide at the start of business. Overseas fans can log onto www. fifa. com and begin buying a ticket from 11 am GMT.

Johannesburg, Feb. 19 : Having waited for four years to be eligible to play for South Africa, Pakistan-born leg-spinner Imran Tahir is likely to make his debut for the national side sooner than later.

Lahorite Tahir is close to acquiring South African citizenship and is married to a South African woman.

He''s a prodigious turner of the ball, and national team coach Micky Arthur, admits that wrist spin is the one missing link in his otherwise powerful unit.

So, there is a possibility of rushing Tahir into the international arena during Australia''s tour of the Rainbow Nation.

Sydney/Johannesburg, Feb. 17 : Australian captain Ricky Ponting wanted to learn all he could about the youngest member of the touring squad, Phillip Hughes, and would have been most surprised to hear that Hughes loves to breed and show chickens.

For Hughes, this activity is a passion, but he rarely talks about it.

"He used to show chooks, and he used to help me breed them. It is something he keeps very close to him, and it is something he can''t do in the city, but it was one of his hobbies," the Sydney Morning Herald quoted his father, Greg, as saying.