Today's sports news: What you need to know

Latest - New Zealand sailor Thomas Saunders has taken a commanding lead at the Laser world championships in Barcelona.

Saunders has finished first, fourth and second in the first three gold fleet races overnight to jump to the top of the standings.

The 29 year old has a 14-point lead over Ireland's Finn Lynch, with Olympic silver medallist Tonci Stipanovic of Croatia another 28 points behind in third.

"It was a great day for me today," Saunders said. [Stand-in coach] Mike [Bullot] and I had a great game plan. We managed to get the critical decisions right all day, which set me up for some low scores. It's always a bonus getting a race win. That feeling will never get old.

"I feel like I'm sailing with a lot of freedom. It's a nice mindset to have and something Mike and I have worked hard on.

"I'm pretty excited going into tomorrow. It's a position I've never been in before. It's also a lot of fun. I will try to get some sleep, keep my presence and hope my legs turn up tomorrow."

The final three races are scheduled for tomorrow.

Sharma takes over captaincy

Opener Rohit Sharma will succeed Virat Kohli as India's Twenty20 captain when they take on New Zealand in a three-match Twenty20 series at home this month as the country's cricket board announced a 16-man squad.

Fellow opener KL Rahul has been named Rohit's deputy.

Kohli had stepped down as captain in the run-up to the T20 World Cup, where India failed to make the semi-finals following two early losses to Pakistan and New Zealand.

Kohli has been rested against the Black Caps along with pacemen Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami, and all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja.

The selectors have made a number of changes to the squad that featured in the United Arab Emirates, bringing in the likes of Ruturaj Gaikwad, Venkatesh Iyer, Avesh Khan and Harshal Patel, while dropping all-rounder Hardik Pandya.

The first T20 is scheduled for Jaipur on Nov. 17 followed by games in Ranchi on Nov. 19 and Kolkata on Nov. 21.

There are also two tests.

India T20 Squad:

Rohit Sharma (Captain), KL Rahul (vice-Captain), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Ishan Kishan (wicket-keeper), Venkatesh Iyer, Yuzvendra Chahal, R Ashwin, Axar Patel, Avesh Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Harshal Patel, Mohd.

- Reuters

Marler tests positive, out of Wallabies test

England prop Joe Marler will miss this weekend's Test against Australia at Twickenham after testing positive for Covid-19.

Marler returned a positive lateral flow test on Monday with a subsequent PCR test also coming back positive.

The 32-year-old Harlequins forward will now isolate for 10 days in line with government regulations.

All other players and staff are waiting for PCR test results after additional lateral flow tests came back negative.

The squad trained as normal on Tuesday morning as they continue preparations for the Australia game.

England captain Owen Farrell missed Saturday's 69-3 win over Tonga after testing positive for Covid-19, although he was able to re-join the squad the following day as his initial sample was declared a false positive.

A member of England's support staff also tested positive last week.

- BBC

Canterbury continue to dominate

Canterbury has scored another big win over Wellington to extend their lead at the top of the Plunket Shield standings.

Their 314-run victory at the Basin Reserve with a day to spare is the fifth-highest winning margin in Canterbury's first-class history which stretches back to 1864.

Will Williams clinch his 100th first-class wicket en route to wrapping up the Firebirds' meagre second innings of 115 for nine with 3-21 off his 12.5 overs.

Black Cap Matt Henry meanwhile finished with 4-37 off 17 as the visitors pocketed another 16 points of the possible 20 for their outright victory at the same venue where they beat the same opponents last week.

The win takes them to 40 points on the table after just three rounds: a 17-point margin over the Firebirds - who may yet be overtaken by the Otago Volts or Central Stags, pending the result at Saxton Oval in Nelson.

Heading into the last day Otago are 374 for six in their second innings, a 353 run lead.

European Tour expands

The European men's golf Tour will be renamed the DP World Tour from next year following a partnership with the United Arab Emirates-based logistics company.

The deal will nearly double the total prize money on the tour to more than $280 million from 2022, with a minimum prize fund of $2.8 million for each tournament.

The tour will feature a minimum 47 events in 27 countries.

"The launch of the DP World Tour in 2022, coinciding with both of our 50th anniversaries, will herald a new era in global golf, and crucially it will benefit everybody involved," said Keith Pelley, chief executive of the European Tour.

DP World has sponsored the season-ending event on the European Tour in Dubai since 2009.

The announcement comes after the Asian Tour last month said it would add 10 new tournaments after a partnership with LIV Golf Investments, a company backed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund.

- Reuters

IOC inspects luge track in Beijing

A serious training accident on the Beijing Olympic luge track is under investigation and any conclusions will be implemented in time for the Games in February, the International Olympic Committee said.

Polish luger Mateusz Sochowicz had successful surgery after fracturing his left kneecap and cutting his right leg to the bone when he hit the barrier at the Yanqing National Sliding Centre on Monday.

The Polish Toboggan Sports Association said in a statement that the athlete hit a closed crossing gate that should have been left open.

The 25-year-old luger said the track team were slow to react and he spent half an hour on the ice before being taken to hospital.

Juan Antonio Samaranch, the IOC's head of the coordination commission for the Beijing Olympics, which starts on Feb. 4, expressed support and sympathy for Sochowicz.

Samaranch said the track had received "extraordinary marks for its safety and its quality" from the two international federations that used it at recent test events.

- Reuters

New winner will be crowned at ATP Finals

With world number one and holder Ash Barty sitting out this week's WTA Finals, the only certainty for the eight players competing at the season-ending showdown in Guadalajara, Mexico, is that a new champion will be crowned.

Barty, who counts Wimbledon among the five titles she captured this season, said last month that she would end her 2021 season early due to COVID-19 travel and quarantine restrictions in Australia and start preparing for her home Grand Slam in Melbourne in January.

Her absence means world number four Karolina Pliskova, who is competing in her fifth consecutive WTA Finals, and Spanish No. 5 Garbine Muguruza, back for the first time since 2017, are the only two players with previous experience in the event.

The rest of the field will consist of Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka (No. 2), Czech Barbora Krejcikova (No. 3), Greece's Maria Sakkari (No. 6), Estonia's Anett Kontaveit (No. 8), Poland's Iga Swiatek (No. 9) and Spain's Paula Badosa (No. 10).

Sabalenka will be hoping to put the finishing touches on what has been a breakthrough season that included wins in both Abu Dhabi and Madrid along with semi-final appearances at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.

Pliskova, widely considered one of the best active players without a Grand Slam title, had a slow start to the season but reached the Wimbledon final before stringing together an impressive run on the North American hardcourts.

The eight players will be split into two groups for round-robin play and the top two from each advance to the semi-finals.

- Reuters

F1 confident Jeddah will be ready for race

Formula One's governing body has said it is confident Saudi Arabia will be ready for its grand prix debut next month after media reports highlighted the amount of track work still to be completed.

The floodlit night race along the Red Sea shore in Jeddah is scheduled for Dec. 5 as the penultimate round of the championship.

Depending on results in Brazil and Qatar, Saudi Arabia could be a title decider between Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton. Verstappen leads Hamilton by 19 points with four races remaining.

"The FIA and F1 are getting daily updates of where things are at and it's progressing very, very quickly," FIA race director Michael Masi said.

"I think everyone will acknowledge there's a lot to do but still confident of the race going ahead, no problems."

The Australian said he had visited Jeddah a few weeks ago and his past experience of new races in South Korea (in 2010) and India (2011), both now off the calendar, gave him confidence.

The Jeddah Corniche layout has been billed as the world's fastest street circuit, with drivers expected to reach average speeds of 250kph and top speeds of 322kph.

Featuring 27 corners over 6.175km, it will be the second longest circuit on the calendar after Belgium's Spa-Francorchamps.

- Reuters