Cricket legend Sir Donald Bradman, the best batsman in the game's history, has died aged 92. Aussie Sir Donald, who had an amazing Test average of 99.94, died at home in Adelaide. He was believed to have had pneumonia and had been ill for some time.
The Don dominated cricket for 20 years. He scored 117 centuries, including 29 in only 80 Test innings. Among his feats were scoring 300 in one day and making a record 974 runs in one series against England in 1930. The dad-of-two was knighted in 1949. Ex-England fast bowler Fred Trueman said: "Don was a wonderful man. It is very sad." Former Test umpire Dickie Bird added: "No one will get near that average. He was a wonderful player-a genius." (Sun)
Gender bender
A Nigerian woman footballer forced out of the female team after reports questioning her gender is pinning her hopes of a return to football on a painful operation. Three years ago, Iyabo Abade, 23, was top scorer in Nigeria's female football league, netting 30 goals a season, and selected for the national squad. Suspicions about her gender led to a confrontation with team-mates and a tearful 'confession' in a national newspaper that, while a fully formed female, she also has an Adam's apple and small male genitals.
Acknowledging her "painful" situation, Abade insists she wanted to play but only for a female team. "I'm a woman and I want to play where I belong," she says. Thrown out of football since 1998, she has not played professionally since but is coaching a female team. Born in a village in old Bendel State in southeast Nigeria, Abade was raised a girl and is a woman "in every way, just with a difference," she said. However, she accepts that if she is to return to football, she needs an operation. "I am told it will cost about $ 20,000. I want to undergo the operation but I cannot do it here in Nigeria because I don't want to risk my life. "Somebody has actually discussed with a hospital in the United States where they can do it successfully," she said, adding so far she had raised over $ 2,000, with some of that money coming from players in the men's national team. The footballer said that if she can have the operation, she hopes still to become the best female player in the world.
Nigerian sports journalist Bassey Ekpo said Abade certainly had talent, and if able to get an operation, could still be a force to reckon with. Abade also compared her predicament to that of another Nigerian, Arsenal star Nwankwo Kanu, who made a dramatic comeback to the game after he was diagnosed in 1996 with a life-threatening heart ailment. "Kanu came off the operating theatre table to be voted the best player in Africa. I will be back too in a very big way because football is my life," she said.
