Perth, Dec. 12 : Former Australian pace great Dennis Lillee once described a teenage Mitchell Johnson as a "once in a generation" bowler, and now seems intent that his young protégé fulfills his ultimate prophecy.

Lillee met Johnson yesterday to discuss tactics for bowling at the WACA Ground, passing on advice and experience from 15 years of bowling on the pace-friendly surface.

"It''s good to have his advice. We just spoke about how things have been going for me at the moment and also just bowling at the WACA,"The Age quoted Johnson, as saying.

Johannesburg, Dec. 12: Cricket South Africa (CSA) chief Gerald Majola believes that the decade-old contentious racial quota system - known as "targeted transformation" has produced the results that it was designed for.

The Age quotes Majola as saying the target for the Proteas this season is "a minimum of four black players on the field and a minimum of seven black players in a squad of 15".

By "black players", lovers of the sport should read non-whites.

Perth, Dec. 12 : Australian quick Mitchell Johnson says that he is taking inspiration from his mentor Dennis Lillee to counter the visiting South African team both verbally and on the field.

Johnson, the fourth-leading Test wicket-taker in 2008 with 50 scalps, said Lillee has passed on advice for putting the heat on the South African batsmen in the first Test at the WACA next week.

Johnson has played only one Test at the WACA and is yet to make his first-class debut for WA after crossing over from Queensland.

London, Dec. 12 : Formula One World Champion Lewis Hamilton has warned teams participating in the top-end racing circuit not to indulge in too many cost-effective measures, saying that doing so, could ruin the sport in the long-term.

Speaking in London, where he and Mika Hakkinen, one of his predecessors at McLaren Mercedes, launched an anti-drink-drive campaign, Hamilton said Formula One must remain a manufacturer-supported series at the pinnacle of motor sport and the big companies must retain an incentive to stay involved.

Karachi, Dec. 12: Keen to make domestic cricket in Pakistan more attractive, former Pakistan cricket captain and now Director General of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Javed Miandad has announced a new format.

Miandad told a press conference here on Thursday that now domestic cricket would not be run on the basis of regions but on the basis of eight associations and eleven departments.

Hamburg - The draw for the last 16 of the Champions League made by Franz Beckenbauer pitted nine-time European champions Real Madrid against four-time winners Bayern Munich.

Fortunately - perhaps - for both teams it was only a mock draw staged by Germany's pay-TV broadcaster Premiere. So try again: this time the Kaiser pulls Chelsea out of the hat for Bayern.

Smiles all round, but anything's possible when the real draw takes place at UEFA headquarters at Nyon, Switzerland on December 19.