The FA Cup second round draw took place on Monday, 9 November, and it has handed a historic home tie to seventh-tier Wimborne Town, who will host League One side Bradford City. The draw was broadcast live by TNT Sports from Bolitho Park at about 18:45 GMT, ahead of the last first-round tie between Plymouth Parkway and Berkhamsted.

When are the second round ties played?

All 20 ties are scheduled for the weekend of 5-6 December. Forty clubs entered the draw, one of them a placeholder for the winner of the Parkway-Berkhamsted match, which will be at home to Barnet. The winners of this round take home £79,500 in prize money, and losing sides are guaranteed £21,200. Premier League and Championship clubs enter in the third round. That draw is expected on the evening of Monday, 7 December, though the Independent described that date as presumed rather than confirmed.

Wimborne’s dream continues

Wimborne are the story of the draw. The Dorset part-timers reach the second round for the first time, having beaten League Two’s Crawley Town 2-0 in round one. Bradford arrive in confident form after a 7-0 win over Marine. Wimborne manager Tim Sills said he would have been happy with any home tie, but admitted the opposition is “a different challenge”. He added that his players “can’t wait to hopefully produce another magical moment”.

Other ties to watch in the second round

Several other non-league sides will also hope to cause an upset. Dover Athletic host 2021 winners Leicester City. Guiseley, another seventh-tier club, who knocked out National League side Sutton United 1-0, welcome League One’s Notts County. Fifth-tier Kidderminster Harriers, 3-0 winners over Doncaster, travel to Barrow.

Among the all-professional ties, 2013 winners Wigan Athletic meet Barnsley in an all-League One clash. Grimsby Town, who needed penalties to beat eighth-tier Stafford Rangers, host Oldham Athletic, who beat Sheffield Wednesday in extra time. Leyton Orient travel to Port Vale, and Luton Town, managed by Jack Wilshere, visit AFC Fylde.

FA Cup second round draw: every fixture

Chesterfield v Cheltenham Town; Guiseley v Notts County; Wigan Athletic v Barnsley; Exeter City v Stevenage; Plymouth Parkway/Berkhamsted v Barnet; York City v Carlisle United; Crewe Alexandra v Plymouth Argyle; AFC Fylde v Luton Town; Barrow v Kidderminster Harriers; Colchester United v Mansfield Town; Rochdale v Newport County; Dover Athletic v Leicester City; Port Vale v Leyton Orient; Grimsby Town v Oldham Athletic; Shrewsbury Town v Burton Albion; Salisbury v Blackpool; Wimborne Town v Bradford City; Rotherham United v Bristol Rovers; Reading v Stockport County; Wycombe Wanderers v MK Dons.

With the Premier League and Championship sides still to come in, this round is the last chance for the lower-league clubs to get through to the third round without facing the top two divisions. Wimborne, Guiseley and Dover will hope to join the survivors from the first round.

File photo: FA Cup Trophy at Manchester National Football Museum (Ank Kumar) 01.jpg by Ank Kumar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The biggest college football playoff expansion yet was made official Monday: the postseason will double from 12 to 24 teams starting next year, and the Power Four conference championship games that anchored the season’s final weekend for roughly three decades will disappear.

College leaders announced the new format after ESPN agreed to rework its media contract. According to the sources, the network said the deal runs five years and adds $1.7 billion on top of the existing $7.8 billion agreement, which already extends through the 2031 season. Specific terms were not released.

How the 24-team format will work

Five teams will qualify automatically: the champions of the four Power Four leagues (the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC) and the highest-ranked team from the Group of Six conferences. A selection panel will choose the other 19 teams.

The top eight seeds will get first-round byes. The playoff will begin on the second weekend in December, and the first two rounds will be played on campus. The Army-Navy game moves into the first weekend of December, a date once reserved for conference title games.

Notre Dame stands out as a loser in the fine print. As an independent, it will have no guaranteed path. This season, the final one under the 12-team model, it gets a guarantee if it finishes in the top 12.

Who pays for the lost championship games?

The conference title games were worth an estimated $345 million, so the money was central to getting the deal done. The Associated Press reported that revenue from the new playoff games should presumably make up for that loss. ESPN also reported it would not be on the hook for $140 million of the additional money because of the title-game cancellations. Both the SEC and the Big Ten had to approve the change.

OutKick reported that the sides had long discussed the timing, and that a stepping stone to 16 teams had been considered before a jump to 24. The report said ESPN’s willingness to cover the costs tied to eliminating the title games, which affect the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and SEC, tipped the decision toward going straight to 24.

Winners, skeptics and what comes next

The Power Four conferences are betting that most of the added spots will go to their own members. That would give second-tier programs a fresh reason to keep spending in the era of name, image and likeness deals and rosters the AP described as costing $50 million.

“Opening the playoff to more programs, more student-athletes and more fanbases across the country is great for college football,” said Mississippi State president Mark Keenum, who chairs the CFP board.

Not everyone is cheering. OutKick’s coverage framed the move as the sport selling “another piece of its soul,” and its headlines noted that figures including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called the decision short-sighted. The sources do not detail those objections further.

Some questions remain open. The sources do not explain how the selection panel will weigh at-large candidates or what happens to the conference title games’ traditional role in shaping the rankings. Even so, the direction is clear. The sport’s postseason will be bigger and more campus-centered, and it will rest on a larger television deal. By 2027, a conference championship will no longer be the last hurdle of the regular season but one of five routes into a much larger field.

File photo: CollegeFootballPlayoff.jpg by Bobk2314, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Australia will meet New Zealand in the Rugby League World Cup final in Brisbane next weekend after a 44-12 semi-final win over Samoa in Sydney, a match billed as a genuine threat to the champions that instead became a lopsided demonstration of discipline.

Fullback Reece Walsh was the headline act with three tries, the first celebrated with a backflip. Australia crossed eight times to Samoa’s two, according to the Associated Press, which described the display as dominant in wet conditions at Allianz Stadium. The Guardian noted a blustery evening that helped blow away Samoa’s brief second-half hopes.

A Samoan implosion after a fiery build-up

Few semi-finals have carried as much anticipation. Samoa had lost the 2022 final, when Australia kept them scoreless for long stretches. The Kangaroos had also looked unconvincing in their earlier games. The pre-match Siva Tau brought the two sides almost face to face, with plenty of glares and gestures, and it ended in nods of mutual respect.

The match then went the other way. Samoa’s errors and penalties kept handing Australia field position, and the video referee made a harsh call against Stephen Crichton early on that shifted the momentum. A sin-bin for prop Spencer Leniu late in the first half gave Australia an overlap. Tries from Tom Dearden, Jacob Preston, Tom Trbojevic, Walsh and Bradman Best built a 26-2 halftime lead.

Walsh’s flair and the Kangaroos’ composure

Samoa had a short-lived revival when a Walsh error led to a Crichton try early in the second half. Walsh answered quickly, spinning through the line, and later completed his hat-trick with a flamboyant dive after being set up by Cam Munster. That came shortly after coach Kevin Walters had said on the broadcast that he wanted his number one to cut out the needless acrobatics.

The Guardian reported that Samoa were unlucky with several bunker rulings, including a second-half try for Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow that was disallowed. It argued those decisions would not have changed the outcome. Australia completed close to 90 percent of their sets and conceded only one line break, and their forwards matched Samoa’s physicality, answering questions about their form.

What awaits in the rugby league world cup final

Australia are chasing a fourth consecutive title. New Zealand reached the decider by beating Tonga 34-10 in Newcastle on Saturday. The two sides have already met in this tournament, with Australia coming from behind to win the opener 24-22.

History favours the Kangaroos. New Zealand’s 2008 triumph is the only break in Australian dominance of the competition since 1975. With the defending champions looking sharper at the right moment, the Kiwis will need to raise their game in Brisbane to repeat that feat.

File photo: Australia national rugby league team (26 October 2008).jpg by paddynapper, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Mercedes constructors’ championship was decided at Interlagos on Sunday, in a race that Mercedes did not win. A rain-lashed Sao Paulo Grand Prix went to Lando Norris, while Mercedes did enough to put the title beyond Ferrari’s reach with three rounds still to run.

Norris recovers from a poor start

Norris took pole in soaking conditions on Saturday, but his launch on Sunday was poor. Kimi Antonelli, the newly crowned drivers’ champion, passed him on the short run to turn one, and Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson then got ahead at turn two. For a while it looked like Mercedes’ afternoon.

Antonelli pulled clear, at one point leading by around six to eight seconds, as the track began to dry. The race turned when the leaders switched to slick tyres. Norris stopped early and closed rapidly. Antonelli, who pitted a lap later, reported “something weird” with his car and then spun at turn one, handing the lead to the McLaren. He went off again on lap 24. Mercedes told him the problem was tyre temperature, and he ended the day fifth.

Rain returned late and sent the field back to intermediates, but Norris stayed composed. He crossed the line just short of 15 seconds clear of Verstappen for a second straight Brazilian win and McLaren’s first victory since August. “The main thing today was I kept it cool and didn’t make any mistakes and had the pace when I needed to,” he said. On the podium his champagne bottle shattered in his hand during his usual celebration. He appeared unhurt.

Verstappen charges from 21st

The afternoon’s other big story was Max Verstappen, who started 21st and finished second, echoing his 2024 win here from 17th. He began cautiously, then picked off a string of cars, including a duel with Lewis Hamilton, and moved past Oscar Piastri and Alex Albon. Once he had passed Antonelli he could not catch Norris. He said the car felt strange after the first stint and that the team needed to understand why.

Teammate Isack Hadjar completed a double podium for Red Bull in third. He apologised to Verstappen over an awkward moment between them, saying he could have kept it more on the track.

How the Mercedes constructors’ championship was clinched

Mercedes did not need a victory. George Russell finished fourth, ahead of Antonelli, and that was enough to leave Ferrari unable to catch them. Russell’s race was eventful. He started with a five-place engine penalty, having earlier been furious with the team over an instruction to abort his final flying lap in qualifying, which he felt cost him pole. On Sunday he spun on the narrow pit-lane exit and fell to eighth, then recovered by timing his second stop well when the rain returned.

The result gives Mercedes a ninth constructors’ title, their first since eight in a row from 2014 to 2021. According to Sky Sports, that puts them level with Williams in third on the all-time list. “We have taken a few years to be back at the top spot,” team principal Toto Wolff said. “Not many teams have been able to come back from such a situation.”

Ferrari and the rest of the field

Ferrari had a messy day. Hamilton, making his 400th start, jumped from 20th to ninth on lap one. He then lost time in tyre gambles and spun while entering the pits on the main straight, clipping a barrier. He finished ninth. Charles Leclerc was seventh, but the result may change because stewards are investigating contact with Lawson during their final-lap fight. The pair had said before the weekend that tensions after Hamilton’s criticism of Leclerc over a first-lap move in Mexico were settled following talks with team boss Fred Vasseur.

Piastri was sixth, which left McLaren level with Red Bull on points scored in the race and 17 points behind them in the fight for third in the standings. Nico Hulkenberg took the final point for Audi in tenth despite a late penalty for pushing Franco Colapinto off track. Rafael Camara finished 20th on his Formula 1 debut for Haas at his home race.

The title Mercedes won a week after Antonelli’s drivers’ crown completes a double for the team, even if Interlagos belonged to Norris.

File photo: 2024 McLaren MCL38 Lando Norris F1.jpg by Calreyn88, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Rybakina withdrawal has removed the world number one and defending champion from the WTA Finals on the eve of the tournament, and with her goes the chance to become the first player since Serena Williams in 2014 to win the title in consecutive years. Organisers cited a viral illness. Rybakina herself said her “body is just not physically ready to compete.”

The 27-year-old Kazakh announced the decision on Saturday, a day before the round-robin event began at Indian Wells in California. Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk, the first alternate, takes her place in the eight-woman field.

A career-best season ends on a low note

The timing is cruel given how much Rybakina achieved in 2026. She won the Australian Open and the US Open, adding to her 2022 Wimbledon title. She also took the Stuttgart and Ningbo events and reached the finals at Indian Wells and Toronto. Beating Aryna Sabalenka in the US Open final ended the Belarusian’s 99-week run at the top, and Rybakina secured the year-end number one ranking in Tokyo in October.

Her numbers back up the ranking. She finishes the year 54-14, including 17-2 in Grand Slam matches, and she led the tour with 438 aces, 140 more than Sabalenka in second. She also hit 1,775 winners and won 10 matches against top-10 opponents, more than any rival.

The second half of her campaign has been rougher, though. Since New York she has dealt with physical problems, including a neck injury that forced her out of the Tokyo quarter-finals late last month. Tournament director Garbine Muguruza, a former world number one, told Reuters that Rybakina “was feeling so-so in Tokyo as well” and “really couldn’t recover on time.” Muguruza stressed that the priority was for the player to rest. “We don’t want her to feel like she has to play,” she said.

Who benefits from the Rybakina withdrawal

The most obvious beneficiary is Sabalenka, whom Rybakina beat in last year’s final. With the top seed gone, the world number two has an opening to close the ranking gap. Muguruza acknowledged as much, saying Sabalenka “might be thinking that this can be a good opportunity.” Sabalenka, who won Indian Wells earlier this year, is joined by French Open champion Mirra Andreeva, Wimbledon champion Linda Noskova, Coco Gauff, Jessica Pegula, Elina Svitolina and Karolina Muchova.

Kostyuk was already in Indian Wells and practising as an alternate when the news broke. She makes her Finals debut after a breakthrough year that included the Madrid title and a move into the top 10. Muguruza noted that several first-time qualifiers are in the field, and argued that the round-robin format leaves no room for error. “Every match could be a Grand Slam final,” she said.

A tournament that has already moved once

The event was relocated to Indian Wells from Riyadh, with Muguruza saying that conflict in the Middle East made it “no longer safe” and that player security was the deciding factor. She said players welcomed the switch and that ticket sales have been strong.

Rybakina, for her part, says she will rest at home and prepare for 2027. After a season of this scale, the Rybakina withdrawal looks less like a surprise than the end of a long campaign catching up with her body. It still leaves the season-ending event without its biggest name.

Explore more on this topic with Vexel Search.

File photo: Elena Rybakina (2025 DC Open) 07 (cropped2).jpg by Hameltion

derivative work: Kacir, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Khawaja sandpaper claims have reopened one of Australian cricket’s most damaging episodes, and the retired opener is now trying to control how they are read. In a two-part Instagram video posted on Sunday, Usman Khawaja said he has “not thrown anyone under the bus” with the allegations in his autobiography, Sabr, which is due out on Tuesday.

Khawaja’s central assertion, made a day earlier, is that the whole Australia team bore responsibility for the plot to use sandpaper on the ball in the 2018 Cape Town Test against South Africa. Only three men were sanctioned at the time: captain Steve Smith, vice-captain David Warner and Cameron Bancroft. Smith and Warner received one-year bans, and Bancroft, who was caught on camera, was suspended for nine months.

What Khawaja says he meant

Khawaja framed “all of us” as a statement of collective accountability, not a list of names. He said that “whether we like it or not, we are all responsible for what happened together,” and that he never speaks on anyone else’s behalf in the book. He blamed “clickbait” headlines for suggesting otherwise. He did not retreat from the underlying claim, though. Asked whether he would deny that everyone knew, he said he would not.

He also cast Smith, Warner and Bancroft as the real victims, saying they “took the blame for all of us” and endured public humiliation. By his account, he and the current players are not victims.

Why now, and why not earlier?

Much of Khawaja’s video was a defence of timing. He said he told Smith in 2018 that he wanted to go to the media after the penalties were handed down, but that Smith talked him out of it and insisted on taking the blame. He said he tried again in 2021, speaking with then-coach Justin Langer and Todd Greenberg, who was then chief executive of the players’ union and now runs Cricket Australia. That attempt came before a joint statement from Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon saying they did not know a foreign substance had been taken onto the field.

“I wasn’t going to go to war with those guys,” Khawaja said. He added that he stayed silent while still in the team, and invited critics to call him “a chicken.” He pointed to the book’s release after Australia’s recent Test series in South Africa, which the hosts won 2-1, as evidence this was not a money-making exercise. Reports also say he met Cummins in October to discuss the book’s contents.

Extracts from the book, as reported, go further than the “all of us” line. They allege that sandpaper was first used in the preceding Test in Gqeberha, initially at the start of sessions. They also allege that a member of the coaching staff encouraged Bancroft to step up what he was doing. These are Khawaja’s allegations and have not been independently established.

The pushback

The Khawaja sandpaper claims have not gone unchallenged. Former coach Darren Lehmann, who resigned after the scandal, told ABC: “I don’t think everyone would have known,” though he conceded that ball-tampering was a “big part” of international cricket in that era. The four bowlers named in the 2021 statement remain in the squad, with Cummins as Test captain, and have previously denied involvement or knowledge.

Cricket Australia has shown no appetite for a fresh investigation. It said that any relevant information can still be presented, that what it has received has been “properly considered,” and that it remains “comfortable with the findings of our integrity process.”

The immediate pressure may land on the current side. Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood are not involved in this month’s white-ball series against England, so stand-in captain Mitch Marsh is likely to be asked about the allegations. With the book out in days, Khawaja’s account and the denials look set to remain in direct conflict.

Explore more on this topic with Vexel Search.

File photo: 2018.01.05.17.43.25-Usman Khawaja & Steve Smith (38876757994).jpg by www.davidmolloyphotography.com from Sydney, Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Carlos Alcaraz finally has his Paris Masters title, and he got it against the man who ended his US Open defence two months ago. The 23-year-old Spaniard beat Ben Shelton 7-6 (7-5), 7-5 on Sunday at the Plenitude Arena in Nanterre, collecting a ninth Masters 1000 crown at his sixth attempt in the French capital.

A rematch with a lot of history

The final carried obvious baggage. In September, Alcaraz was only just back from months out with a wrist injury when Shelton knocked him out of the US Open quarter-finals in a five-set marathon that lasted around four and a half hours. Since then Alcaraz has lost just once in 17 matches and won three titles, including 500-level events in Tokyo and Vienna.

The Paris final was a very different contest, finishing in just under two hours. Alcaraz said afterwards that facing Shelton was “one of the toughest challenges we have in tennis right now” and predicted the American would only get harder to beat. “It’s something I’ve been chasing for a long time,” he said, recalling some of the toughest losses of his career in this event.

How the Paris Masters title was won

Little separated the two through the first set. Alcaraz saved all six break points he faced, and Shelton fended off two of his own. The tie-break decided it, and Shelton’s forehand let him down. By the Guardian’s count he overshot the baseline three times there, while Alcaraz won four of the last five points from 4-3 down.

The second set swung on a few games. Shelton broke for 3-2 after Alcaraz was undone by double faults and loose groundstrokes, but Alcaraz broke straight back to level at 4-4. He then asked the crowd for more noise and danced to the music at the changeover. Serving to stay in the match, Shelton sent two more forehands astray, and Alcaraz clinched it on his second match point with another forehand winner. He won five of the last six games.

The win also leaves Alcaraz unbeaten in finals in Paris, after his two French Open titles. As at Roland Garros, he got there by surviving match points, this time two against Taylor Fritz in the quarter-finals. He is the first Spaniard to win the event since David Ferrer in 2012, and Boris Becker handed him the trophy.

Turin next, with Sinner’s Masters 1000 record in sight

Alcaraz arrives at the ATP Finals in Turin, which run from November 15 to 22, on a nine-match winning streak. He has won five tour-level titles this year, behind only the injured Jannik Sinner on six. He has also won seven of the nine different Masters 1000 tournaments. Only Canada and Shanghai are missing, and with them he could become the third man after Novak Djokovic and Sinner to win all nine.

For Shelton, the world number four, it was a first defeat in a Masters final after he won both of his earlier ones, at the last two Canadian Opens. He has had a strong year, with four titles and a first major final. Both players have qualified for Turin, so a quick rematch is possible. After that comes the Davis Cup finals later this month, but Alcaraz’s focus will be on finishing a year that began with a career Grand Slam in Australia on a high.

Explore more on this topic with Vexel Search.

File photo: Carlos Alcaraz Roland Garros 2025 (cropped).jpg by Like tears in rain

derivative work: Kacir, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

President Donald Trump has publicly offered the job of White House press secretary to UFC chief executive Dana White, an announcement that stands out even by the standards of a president known for breaking political norms. White says the two will meet on Monday, but nobody outside their circle knows whether the offer is serious.

Trump made the announcement on Truth Social on Saturday from his golf club in Florida. He called White “a violent Fighter and Warrior” and wrote: “Dana will be a Press Secretary like none other. Dana, please take the job!” He also asked White to bring along several UFC fighters as “assistants”, naming Islam Makhachev, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Justin Gaethje, Daniel Cormier, Amanda Nunes and Kayla Harris. He acknowledged that “some are not from our Country” and said, “We need these people to defend us against the Lunatic Left.”

How Dana White responded

White was in London for a boxing event when the post went up. He shared Trump’s message on Instagram alongside an image of himself behind the lectern in the White House briefing room, captioned “On to the next chapter”. It was not clear whether he meant it as a joke. At a news conference afterwards he said he was flying to Washington and had a meeting with Trump on Monday. According to AP, he seemed confused when asked how he would balance the role with his current jobs. “I got a lot of jobs already,” he said, adding that he was sure there would be more to discuss after the meeting.

He has plenty to balance. Besides running the UFC, White leads Power Slap and has just launched Zuffa Boxing, which AP says he runs with Saudi Arabian backers. He also sits on the board of Meta. CNN, citing a source familiar with the matter, reported that White had declined the idea. White himself has not said so publicly. White House communications director Steven Cheung, meanwhile, cheered the idea on X.

A vacancy at the centre of a shaken White House

The role has been empty for some time. NPR reports that Karoline Leavitt left at the end of August. Trump then tried out Katie Zacharia, who quit less than five days into the job in mid-October after a single, uneasy appearance before reporters. Since then the president has had no chief spokesperson.

The offer comes at a turbulent moment. Republicans lost control of both the House and the Senate in Tuesday’s midterm elections, including in areas they had held for decades. On Friday, Trump announced he was replacing chief of staff Susie Wiles, who was seen as a tempering influence, with Stephen Miller, the architect of the administration’s hard-line immigration policies. Whoever fills the White House press secretary post would be the public face of an administration in the middle of that reset.

A long friendship, and a few caveats

White’s closeness to Trump is well documented. He credits Trump with helping save the UFC in 2001, when Trump hosted two of its events at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City while mainstream venues shunned the sport. White spoke at the Republican National Conventions in 2016, 2020 and 2024 and appeared on stage for Trump’s 2024 victory speech. In June, the UFC staged a card on the White House South Lawn to mark America’s 250th anniversary and Trump’s 80th birthday.

Still, the job is a very different proposition from the cage. The press secretary deals with reporters daily, and White has a combative record with the media. He has publicly attacked journalists over coverage of the UFC, including a 2020 clip criticising reporters who questioned holding fights during the pandemic. In 2009 he released an expletive-laden video tirade that included an anti-gay slur.

Al Jazeera also noted a side thread on social media. Some users speculated that the administration may have meant to name a more experienced Black woman who shares the same name. That is online speculation, and none of the other sources back it up. The White House and a UFC spokesperson did not respond to AP’s requests for comment on Saturday.

For now, the only firm fact is the Monday meeting. Whether it produces a new White House press secretary or just a friendly catch-up between two longtime allies is still an open question.

Explore more on this topic with Vexel Search.

File photo: Dana White in June 2025 (cropped).jpg by Press Service of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Jon Rahm goes into the final round of the Abu Dhabi Championship with a one-shot lead, but Tyrrell Hatton, Francesco Laporta and Rory McIlroy are all within two shots of him. The Spaniard shot a bogey-free six-under 66 at Yas Links on Saturday to reach 18 under.

Rahm’s response under pressure

Rahm began the day in a three-way tie for the lead with Hatton and Laporta and pulled clear late. Hatton briefly drew level after his seventh birdie of the round at the 14th. Rahm reclaimed the outright lead at the 15th with a curling 20-foot birdie putt. He nearly stretched his advantage at the last but narrowly missed another birdie chance.

The 31-year-old is chasing his first individual win outside the LIV tour since the 2023 Masters. He has said recently that he does not know what 2027 holds after leaving LIV. Reports this week say the breakaway league has confirmed it will wind down after five years.

Hatton and Laporta both signed for 67s and sit on 17 under. All three will play together again on Sunday, and Hatton has made clear he relishes the pairing. “Naturally we are going to want to beat each other,” he said. “Hopefully I can get off to a good start and put him under some pressure.” Laporta, 36, led after round one with a 10-under score and is bidding for a first DP World Tour title.

McIlroy’s record chase

The biggest name in the chasing pack is McIlroy, who is on 16 under after a 67. He has recovered from a two-shot penalty in round one for improving his lie before a chip. In round two he made 11 birdies in a 63, then added eight more on Saturday. He also ran off seven birdies in a row from the seventh to the 14th.

Two costly holes cost him the outright lead. He made a double-bogey six at the par-four 10th, then dropped another shot at the par-three 17th after sharing the lead earlier in the round. He admitted to being “a little rueful” about the missed chances but still likes his position. “I’m going to have to go out and shoot a low one, something in the mid to low 60s to get it done,” he said.

The stakes go beyond the trophy. A win would reportedly give McIlroy an eighth Race to Dubai title, matching Colin Montgomerie’s record. He is already projected to rise to second in the standings behind Eugenio Chacarra, who is on eight under after a 67.

Who else is in contention

Adam Scott has not dropped a shot all week. His 66 on Saturday moved him to 15 under and fifth place. Matthew Jordan and David Puig are a shot further back on 14 under. Three Masters champions are in the top five: Rahm (2023), McIlroy (2025 and 2026) and Scott (2013).

The event is the first leg of a two-week playoff series. Seventy players entered, and the top 50 advance to a $10 million finals event in Dubai next week. That gives players lower down the board something to play for on Sunday, even if the title looks likely to go to one of the leading names.

Sky Sports Golf has live coverage of the final round of the Abu Dhabi Championship from 6.30am UK time on Sunday.

Explore more on this topic with Vexel Search.

File photo: Jon Rahm Ryder Cup 2025-130 (cropped).jpg by Bryan Berlin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Usman Khawaja has reopened the most notorious episode in modern Australian cricket, claiming that sandpaper ball tampering during the 2018 South Africa tour was known to the entire touring group and not just the three players who were punished. The retired opener’s claim, taken from his autobiography Sabr, is flatly at odds with the findings of Cricket Australia’s investigation and with years of denials from the team’s bowlers.

“It was all of us. Not the batters, not the bowlers, not the staff. All of us,” Khawaja told Nine newspapers, including the Sydney Morning Herald. The 39-year-old, who played 88 Tests and scored 6,229 runs before announcing his retirement in January, said he had expected the full story to emerge long before now. “I genuinely thought after eight years the truth would have been out by now,” he said.

What Khawaja says happened in Port Elizabeth

Khawaja’s account pushes the timeline back beyond Cape Town. He says the team used sandpaper in the second Test at Port Elizabeth, now Gqeberha. According to extracts of the book, open discussion in the dressing room about roughing up the ball led to the “discovery of sandpaper as an effective agent”. He says Cameron Bancroft volunteered to use it in South Africa’s first innings, when the ball swung considerably.

Khawaja also writes that Steve Smith “essentially threw his hands in the air” and said he did not want to know. The plan unravelled in the third Test at Newlands, when television cameras caught Bancroft handling the sandpaper on the field.

Smith and David Warner were each suspended for 12 months, and Bancroft for nine. Cricket Australia’s investigation found only those three had prior knowledge. Khawaja dedicates the “sandpapergate” chapter to them and says he urged teammates in the dressing room to share the blame. “Obviously, it didn’t work that way, and those three guys got crucified,” he said. He also said he was surprised that nobody asked him for evidence during the inquiry.

Denials from bowlers, coach and Cricket Australia

The claim that bowlers knew has been the central unresolved question. Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon issued a joint statement in 2021 saying they “did not know a foreign substance was taken on to the field” until they saw the images on the big screen. They also noted that the umpires inspected the ball and saw no damage. That statement came days after Bancroft, asked in a Guardian interview whether the bowlers knew, called the answer “pretty probably self-explanatory”.

Cummins, now Test captain, said on 8 October that Khawaja had given him a heads-up about the book. He told reporters he had no concerns, saying it was “all dealt with then”.

Darren Lehmann, who was coach in 2018, was cleared of wrongdoing but resigned afterwards. He told ABC Sport he did not believe everyone could have known the details, and said the claims “drag up some bad memories”. He argued that tampering had long been a part of cricket, but conceded that “that doesn’t make it right” and that “we paid a heavy price”.

Cricket Australia said it remained “comfortable” with its original findings. It added that anyone with relevant information still has the opportunity to present it, and that all material submitted so far had been properly considered.

Why the sandpaper ball tampering claims matter now

Nothing in Khawaja’s account has been tested by any investigation, and those he implicates deny it. The dispute also rests on competing recollections of private dressing-room conversations from eight years ago, so it is unlikely to be settled quickly.

Still, the claim carries weight because of who is making it. Khawaja was a member of the squad and was himself cleared in the inquiry. The question of how far knowledge of the plan spread through the squad has hung over the scandal since 2018, and a former teammate’s detailed account will keep it alive. Whether Cricket Australia’s offer to hear new information leads anywhere is now the open question, with the book due out this week.

Explore more on this topic with Vexel Search.

File photo: 2018.01.05.17.43.25-Usman Khawaja & Steve Smith (38876757994).jpg by www.davidmolloyphotography.com from Sydney, Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.