London, Mar 14 : Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez is convinced that he is on course to shatter the Manchester United empire.

Benitez takes his side to Old Trafford on the back of Tuesday's Euro win over Real Madrid. He knows even his first- ever league victory at United would leave the title as no more than a faint hope.

Manchester United, the defending champions would still be four points ahead, with a game in hand.

Are, Sweden  - Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway clinched the overall World Cup title on Saturday when his Austrian Benjamin Raich of Austria crashed out in the season-ending slalom race.

The Austrian Raich trailed had cut the deficit on Svindal to two points with a giant slalom win on Friday. But he then straddled a gate around 35 seconds into the slalom.

Svindal won the World Cup for the second time, his first title being in 2007.

Sydney, Mar 14 : The Indian women's cricket team beat Australia by 16 runs in a Super Six game with the help of a fine knock of 76 by Anjum Chopra, seriously denting the Australian defence of the World Cup at North Sydney Oval.

Australia is left with two points with a couple of Super Six matches to go, and they must win both and hope that two of England (6) New Zealand (4) and India (4) falter. There are no semi-finals and Australia will be out of the competition if eight points are needed to reach next Sunday''s decider.

Los Angeles  - In the end, Ron Artest made the big plays at both ends, to rescue the Houston Rockets.

Artest hit the go-ahead jumper in the closing seconds, and then blocked Vladimir Radmanovic's potential game-tying three-pointer with 4.9 ticks left, helping the visiting Rockets escape the Charlotte Bobcats, 91-86 on Friday night.

"We're very fortunate to get that win," Rockets coach Rick Adelman said. "We had it in control and we made three straight mistakes. They had a chance to win it."

Melbourne, Mar 14 : Australian skipper Ricky Ponting is happy to bowl part time bowler Simon Katich in occasional short spells as he did on the final day of the second Test when his team needed to end the resistance from South Africa's lower order.

Reluctant Katich is happy to bowl. And, in the process he helped win the second Test and the series.

Ponting threw Katich the ball in Durban and the opening batman took three wickets. The pair had appeared to be involved in a strange standoff until then, FOX Sports reported.

Whistler, Canada - World Champion Helena Jonsson on Friday won the women's 7.5 kilometre biathlon World Cup sprint event in the Canadian venue of Whistler.

Competing at the venue of next year's winter Olympics Jonsson had a perfect record in the shooting range, finishing without a miss and winning in a time of 19 minutes 43.6 seconds.