The San Francisco 49ers won a thrilling divisional playoff over the New Orleans Saints 36-32 to reach the NFC Conference championship for the first time since the 1997 season. In a dramatic finale, the lead changed four times in the last four minutes before the 49ers emerged victorious thanks to a 14 yard touchdown pass from quarterback Alex Smith to Vernon Davis with just 14 seconds to go. Tight-end Davis ended the game with 180 yards receiving and two touchdowns while Smith put up 299 yards and threw three touchdowns. The Saints, Super Bowl champions two seasons ago, came back from a 17

How do you stop Drew Brees? Or, to give him his full-title, Record-Setting Drew Brees. The man who this season smashed not only the 27-year-old single-season yardage mark set by Dan Marino, but also those for completions (468), completion percentage (71.2%), and 300-yard passing games (seven). In total Brees holds more than 20 separate NFL-recognised individual passing records. Oh, and unlike Marino he also knows a thing or two about getting it done in the playoffs. Two years ago he led the Saints to victory at Super Bowl XLIV, a game in which he tied another record by completing 32 passes.

Perth: Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni on Sunday took the blame on himself for a disastrous performance of his team against Australia, saying that he was the main culprit as the captain. "I need to blame myself as I am the leader of this side. Of course, I am the main culprit, so yes I blame myself," Dhoni said at the post-match press conference here. Dhoni also defended the seniors batsmen who have come under sharp criticism for consistently failing in Australia as well as preceding series in England. Asked whether the seniors should be phased out, Dhoni said that should come up only af

Perth: Australian opener David Warner admits he and partner Ed Cowan are an "odd couple" at the top of the batting order but says the combination of aggression and caution is working well. The pair put Australia on the path to victory in the Perth Test and a 3-0 series lead against India with a 214-run opening stand, with Warner going on to make 180 and claiming the Man-of-the-Match award. The partnership, to which Cowan contributed 74, was the only century stand in a match that saw 30 wickets fall for a total of 701 runs. Cowan is cautious while Warner is aggressive, but the century-maker s

Perth: India skipper MS Dhoni's woes fail to cease in Australia as after a dismal run with the bat, he has been handed a one-Test ban for maintaining slow over-rate in the third Test here, which India lost on the third day by an innings and 37 runs. The ban comes into immediate effect, which means India will not have the service of their regular skipper in the fourth and final Test of the series against Australia at Adelaide, starting January 24. In that event, vice-captain Virender Sehwag, who too has had a dismal run with the bat in Australia, will lead the team. Dhoni was fined 40 per cen

Lahore: The PCB says it is not concerned with the continued ouster of Pakistani players from the lucrative Indian Premier League. "We are not going to talk to anyone or convince anyone to take our players in the IPL. We, in fact, plan to start our own T20 Pakistan Premier League. So we are not concerned about the IPL," ," PCB chief Zaka Ashraf told the Express newspaper. The IPL governing board and franchises have not selected or bid for any Pakistani player from the second edition onwards. The fourth edition of the IPL is due to be held in April and so far the organisers have not bid for an

New Delhi: Former players and the media trained their guns on India's powerful cricket board on Sunday after Mahendra Singh Dhoni's team slid to another humiliating series defeat overseas. Australia smashed India by an innings and 37 runs inside three days in the third Perth Test on Sunday to clinch the four-match series, after winning in Melbourne by 122 runs and in Sydney by an innings and 68 runs. It was India's seventh successive loss abroad, following their 4-0 rout in England last year, in a dismal run that has taken the sheen off their limited-overs World Cup victory last April. As th

Lahore: The Pakistan Cricket Board will soon set up an inquiry panel to probe into the spot-fixing scandal that last year led to the ban and jail terms of three players - Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir. PCB chief Zaka Ashraf has made it clear that the board had not given up on conducting its own inquiry into the spot-fixing scandal. We will soon set up the panel because we want to know ourselves what happened and why this scandal took place. We don't want a repeat of such a shameful episode again," Ashraf maintained that the board would take whatever measures necessary to not

London: Graeme Swann would like to see Monty Panesar included in England's Test team to play Pakistan next week after his fellow spinner dismantled a Pakistan Cricket Board XI in their final warm-up. Panesar, who played his last Test match in July 2009, took 5 for 57 in the first innings followed by 3 for 46 as England won the practice match which ended in Dubai on Friday by 100 runs. "I like the rhythm of spinners at each end and I'd go with two in this part of the world," Swann told the BBC. "Monty has done himself no harm and given (coach) Andy Flower and (captain) Andrew Strauss a tough

Perth: Battered in just two and a half days, Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni on Sunday said the inability to quickly adapt to new conditions and the flop show of his batsmen were the reasons behind his team's series defeat against Australia. "We have not performed well throughout this series. In this particular Test, David Warner played really well and took the game away from us. We could only say that the batting made the difference. We could have scored enough runs in the second innings. The failure in the batting line-up is something that is hurting us," said Dhoni at the post-match pr