Selby slips up after Bamby's writ live on TV

Mark Selby found himself playing a tricky shot before his Welsh Open quarter-final recently. The world snooker championship runner-up was served with legal papers, live on BBC television. The writ was handed over by Selby's former manager, George Bamby, seeking £14,000 before the world number four played Anthony Hamilton. Disguised in a baseball cap and dark glasses, Bamby emerged from the audience and told the defending champions: "Mark Selby, you're officially served with a writ and a bankruptcy notice. I'll leave you with that." Bamby managed Selby from 2004-2007 and claims that letters he sent to Selby were ignored and he was advised by a lawyer to serve the papers to his "place of work". "So that's what I did," said Bamby, "it just happened his place of work was a snooker tournament being watched by millions of people on television. He has 18 days to pay up." A World Snooker spokesman described the incident as "inappropriate". I didn't know who it was," said Selby. "He handed me a letter, mumbled and went off. All I could think about was what might've been in the envelope." Bamby was marched out of the building by security personnel but Selby went on to lose the game 5-3 to Hamilton.

Helicopter on crease is just not cricket

Rain and even dodgy pitches can stop play in cricket but there was an unusual stoppage to play this week in India. A helicopter stopped play in a domestic cricket game in India after the pilot mistook the pitch for a landing pad. Players were forced to abort Saturday's one-day game and scurry for cover when the pilot set the chopper down on the letter 'H' painted in the corner of the cricket ground according to the Hindustan Times. The 'H' stands for the name of the Himachal Pradesh team in the north-west Indian state. A fire near the stadium also added to the confusion of the pilot, who misinterpreted it for smoke signals. The unscheduled arrival of the helicopter, owned by a private airline, halted play for almost half an hour before the red-faced pilot buzzed off again. "It landed suddenly. No one knew what was happening," the competing Punjab team manager told the paper after his side won the interrupted game. "There was chaos. Everyone ran for cover."

Schumacher helping to pixel a pretty picture

We brought you news before of FC Cologne's scheme to help raise the funds for the forthcoming purchase of Lukas Podolksi by selling pixels on a page of their website. They're looking to raise €1m and, at €25 a pixel, it's a bargain but one that hasn't been picked up too quickly so far. But one sports star has ponied up for a few pixels, former Formula One champion Michael Schumacher. Schumacher has paid €875 for 35 pixels and has plastered a large picture of himself over his designated pixels. Schumacher even left a message for Podolski on Cologne's website. "So, boy, you decided to follow your heart", he wrote. "Now you can show what you've got and allow all FC fans to celebrate again." You would have thought that with all his cash, if Schumacher was a true fan he could easily afford to buy all the pixels for himself.

Minister is sick to the gills with Indian team

India's sports minister has taken a swipe at the national soccer team, saying schoolboys and the old men of the 1956 Olympic team could beat the current crop of internationals. "Sometimes the team is ranked 140... sometimes 120," Manohar Singh Gill said at a function celebrating the India team that finished fourth at the Melbourne Olympics. "I don't know what has happened to Indian football. Now, they may even get beaten by the Australian school team. Even now, you may beat the present Indian team by two goals." Gill actually underestimated the current state of the national team, who are 148th in the FIFA world rankings, sandwiched between Tajikistan and Lebanon.

Managing the Chinese is no Shangri-La either

Managing England has been called the "impossible job" but it doesn't have a patch on taking charge of the Chinese national team. The world's largest population has some high expectations of its team which haven't been met for a while. The side didn't manage to score once at the 2008 Olympics and has already failed in its attempts to qualify for next year's World Cup 2010, for

which Serbian manager Vladimir Petrovic has been let go. So the Chinese FA are going back to school in its attempt to select a new manager. Four canditates have been sent to a closed training base where they will undergo a three-hour written test on their knowledge of education, management and sport, the Beijing News said. They'll also have to give a 15-minute presentation to Chinese FA officials.