Today's sports news: What you need to know

Latest - The former New Zealand cricket captain Brendon McCullum is to front a new radio sports station.

Australian broadcaster Sports Entertainment Network plans taking up 29 TAB New Zealand AM/FM radio licences and has signed McCullum to co-host the breakfast programme.

"I still live for sport and this is another opportunity to remain immersed in it in my own country, putting my stamp on coverage and hopefully having a lot of fun along the way!," McCullum said in a statement.

The station will run on the former Trackside radio frequencies.

The Sports Entertainment Network operate 18 radio stations across Australia, a newspaper and a magazine and is set to fill the gap left by NZME's closure of Radio Sport last year.

SEN hasn't said when it will go to air in New Zealand.

City stroll into Champions League final eight

Manchester City marched into the quarter-finals of the Champions League for the fourth straight season after a 2-0 win over Borussia Moenchengladbach.

The Premier League leaders completed a 4-0 aggregate victory.

First-half goals from Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan secured a comfortable victory in another impressive display from Pep Guardiola's side in the home leg, played in the Hungarian capital due to Covid-19 travel restrictions.

City have not conceded a goal since the opening game of the group stage in October.

Real Madrid easily overcame Atalanta 3-1 at home to go through 4-1 on aggregate.

13-times winner Real, who were knocked out in the last 16 by Manchester City last term and Ajax Amsterdam the season before, reached the last eight for the first time since 2018.

Porto, Liverpool, Borussia Dortmund and PSG had already qualified.

-Reuters

England take the lead in T20 series

Jos Buttler's blistering 83 not out trumped Virat Kohli's majestic half-century as England beat India by eight wickets in the third Twenty20 International to go 2-1 up in the five-match series in Ahmedabad.

Kohli struck an unbeaten 77 off 46 balls to rescue India from a top-order collapse and help them to a competitive 156-6.

England overwhelmed the target with 10 balls to spare with Buttler smashing four sixes and five fours in his blistering 52-ball knock.

India were 24-3 after the six powerplay overs and 55-3 at the halfway stage of their innings before Kohli counter-attacked.

The home captain smashed four sixes and eight boundaries as the hosts milked 56 runs off the last four overs.

Jonny Bairstow's unbeaten 40 included the winning boundary.

Ahmedabad hosts all five matches with the fourth Twenty20 International scheduled on Thursday.

The last three matches are being played behind closed doors following a rise in Covid-19 cases in the state of Gujarat.

Breakers make changes

The New Zealand Breakers have agreed to a mutual release with Lamar Patterson and signed import guard Levi Randolph for the remainder of the Australian National Basketball League season.

Patterson, an All-NBL First Team member in NBL20 was limited to just six games for the Breakers averaging 10.8 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 1.8 assists.

The forward has been sidelined with a knee injury that came against the Hawks on February 22.

In his place, the Breakers have signed Randolph who most recently played with the Canton Charge in the NBA G League suiting up in 15 games this season and averaging 12.9 points, 4.0 rebounds and 2.5 assists.

Prior to suiting up in the G League, Randolph played in France and Italy following a four-year college career at Alabama.

Immigration formalities mean Randolph will likely join the Breakers in three weeks with another new signing Will McDowell-White finishing quarantine in two weeks.

-NBL

Zlatan returns to international football

Sweden's record goalscorer Zlatan Ibrahimovic has been recalled to the national football team five years after announcing his retirement.

The 39-year-old scored 62 goals in 116 internationals before quitting after the team's Euro 2016 group-stage exit.

He opened the door to a return in a newspaper interview in November 2020 and Sweden coach Janne Andersson then flew to Milan to meet with the striker.

Ibrahimovic has 14 goals in 14 Serie A appearances for AC Milan this season.

Sweden face Georgia next week before playing Kosovo three days later in their opening two 2022 World Cup qualifiers.

Ibrahimovic has responded to Sweden's announcement of their squad by tweeting: "The return of the God."

-BBC

Zverev unhappy with rankings

U.S. Open runner-up Alexander Zverev says it is "absurd" he remains behind Roger Federer under the ATP Tour's revised rankings system during the Covid-19 pandemic, given that the Swiss was out injured for more than a year.

The ATP, which runs the men's tour, froze the rankings last year during the five-month shutdown of professional tournaments with countries imposing lockdown and sealing borders to check the spread of the novel coronavirus.

When the tour restarted in August a revised system was put in place for calculating the rankings, which determine a players' ability to enter events and receive seedings.

"I should be top-four, top-five in the world right now in the normal ranking system. But the ranking system that we have now is a little bit absurd," said the seventh ranked Zverev.

Federer, who only returned to the tour in Doha last week, has been a big beneficiary of the new system with the 20-times Grand Slam winner ranked sixth despite a lengthy break due to double knee surgeries last year.

"I am the biggest fan of Roger Federer but he hasn't played in a year and he is ahead of me in the rankings," the 23-year-old Zverev said. "I played a Grand Slam final, a Masters 1000 final, won two tournaments.

-Reuters

UAE cricketers banned for 8 years

Former United Arab Emirates captain Mohammad Naveed and batsman Shaiman Anwar Butt have been handed identical eight-year bans by a tribunal for breaching the International Cricket Council's anti-corruption code.

The independent tribunal found both guilty in January of attempting to fix matches of the Twenty20 World Cup Qualifier 2019 in UAE and not reporting corrupt approaches to the anti-corruption officials.

Naveed was also found guilty of similar breaches during the Emirates Cricket Board's T10 League that year.

The bans are backdated to Oct. 16, 2019, when they were provisionally suspended.

-Reuters

Pogacar takes tour win

Tadej Pogacar wrapped up overall victory in the Tirreno-Adriatico week-long cycle race in Italy by holding off Belgian Wout van Aert in the final individual time trial.

The Tour de France champion took fourth place on the day, 12 seconds off the pace of stage winner Van Aert who clocked a best time of 11:06 over 10.1km around San Benedetto del Tronto.

Slovenian Pogacar built his victory by prevailing in the only mountain top finish of the race, then extending his overall lead over Van Aert in Sunday's fifth stage.

Overall, he beat Van Aert by 1:03 and Spain's Mikel Landa by 3:57 while 2019 Tour winner Egan Bernal took fourth place, 4:13 off the pace.

It is Pogacar's second stage race victory this season after he won the UAE Tour last month.

New Zealand's Tom Scully finished 43rd overall, while Jack bauer didn't finish the tour.

-Reuters

Stander to retire from rugby

Ireland flanker CJ Stander has surprisingly announced that he will retire from all forms of rugby at the end of the season, just days after winning his 50th international cap.

South Africa-born Stander, 30, made his Ireland debut against Wales five years ago and won his 50th cap in Monday's 27-24 Six Nations victory against Scotland. He was part of the side that won the Six Nations title in 2018.

Stander said he arrived at the decision during Ireland's Covid-19 lockdown and plans to return home to his native South Africa.

Stander joined Munster in 2012 on a two-year contract from South African Super 15 side the Blue Bulls. He went on to make 150 appearances for the Irish club, winning their Player of the Year award thrice.

Stander, who toured with the British & Irish Lions to New Zealand four years ago, said it was during "a freezing training session at Munster towards the end of 2020" that he realised he had entered the final stretch of his career.

"I always had the intent to retire while I was still playing some of my best rugby. I also knew I wanted my daughter Everli to grow up around her family in South Africa," he said.

-Reuters

LeBron leads the way again

LeBron James recorded the 98th triple-double of his NBA career as the Los Angeles Lakers eased to a 128-97 win over the Golden State Warriors in San Francisco.

Montrezl Harrell scored 15 of his team-high 27 points as the Lakers pulled away in the second quarter to win the season series with the Warriors 2-1.

The team that won the last six series between the division rivals went on to reach the NBA Finals, winning four.

James had 22 points and is fifth on the NBA's all-time list for triple-doubles.

-BBC