Indian cricket fans woke up to good news from New Zealand as Daryl Mitchell led a revival for the hosts against Sri Lanka. The Lankans had dominated the first two days, and with the possibility of a 2-0 win for them and a defeat for India in Ahmedabad against Australia, there is a lot of focus on how things pan out in Christchurch.

Meanwhile, action continued at Indian Wells Masters in the ATP and WTA tour. Stefanos Tsitsipas was stunned while Aryna Sabalenka was among the winners.

Here’s a look at the key stories from international sporting events through the day for 11 March, 2023:

Tea update: Mitchell anchors New Zealand revival

A stubborn Daryl Mitchell century and a rollicking 72 from Matt Henry boosted New Zealand to a slim first-innings lead over Sri Lanka in the first Test on Saturday.

New Zealand were all out for 373 in reply to Sri Lanka’s 355 on day three in Christchurch.

The tourists went in for tea at nine without loss in their second innings, with Dimuth Karunaratne on eight and Oshada Fernando unbeaten on one.

Sri Lanka, who need to sweep the series to keep their hopes of making the World Test Championship final alive, had New Zealand in trouble at 151 for five on the second day.

But Mitchell, who has so often been New Zealand’s saviour in his 17-Test career, refused to give in as he toiled through 193 deliveries for his eighth century.

The 31-year-old right-hander, son of former All Blacks player and coach John Mitchell, lifted his average to a remarkable 58 from 25 innings.

After New Zealand’s top order had struggled, Mitchell put on 54 for the sixth wicket with Michael Bracewell, a further 47 with Tim Southee and 55 with Henry.

Mitchell leapt in the air, waved his bat and received a hug from Henry to celebrate his milestone but added only two more runs before was caught behind off Lahiru Kumara and New Zealand were 291 for eight.

Henry then exploded and his personal-best 72 came primarily from boundaries, with 10 fours and three sixes.

Seventeen runs off one Dhananjaya de Silva over saw the spinner belted out of the attack. But worse was to come for Sri Lanka when his replacement Kasun Rajitha conceded 24 to Henry in his first over.

The third-day wicket did offer assistance to the bowlers, with Rajitha and Asitha Fernando both getting movement early in the day.

Leading up to the drinks break, Bracewell, who had seemed the more settled of the New Zealand overnight pair, was undone by the introduction of left-arm spinner Prabath Jayasuriya.

An appeal for lbw was turned down with reviews showing height was an issue, but with his next delivery Jayasuriya found an edge and Bracewell was caught behind for 25.

Southee brought up New Zealand’s 200, belting Jayasuriya over the mid-wicket fence and continued to swing until the third over with the new ball when he was out to a diving catch by Kumara at square leg.

The New Zealand captain had smashed back-to-back fours off Rajitha but his attempt at a third fell short and he was out for 25 off 20 deliveries.

For Sri Lanka, Fernando returned the best figures of four for 85 while Kumara took three for 76.

Thompson topples Tsitsipas

Unseeded Australian Jordan Thompson grabbed one of the biggest wins of his career on Friday, ousting third-ranked Stefanos Tsitsipas 7-6 (7/0), 4-6, 7-6 (7/5) to reach the third round of the Indian Wells WTA and ATP Masters.

“It’s unreal, at a Masters 1000 ... to have a win like that is incredible,” said Thompson, the world number 87 whose only prior victory over a top-10 player came back in 2017 against Andy Murray at Queen’s Club.

He admitted he felt a little lucky when a stinging forehand from Tsitsipas on match point was ruled a hair wide.

“I’m thankful that last ball was out – I thought it was in,” Thompson told fans on court.

While Tsitsipas led the third-set tiebreaker 2-1 and 4-3, Thompson’s coolness under pressure paid off as Tsitsipas belted a forehand into the net to give the Aussie a match point before succumbing with the near miss.

For Tsitsipas it was another setback in the wake of his sparkling run to the Australian Open final in January.

He departed Melbourne energized despite falling to Novak Djokovic in the title match, but shortly thereafter suffered a shoulder injury.

Playing his first tournament since a second-round exit at Rotterdam, Tsitsipas admitted earlier this week that his shoulder was still troubling him and he didn’t have high hopes of a third Masters 1000 crown.

Tsitsipas and women’s second seed Aryna Sabalenka – playing just her second tournament since winning the Australian Open – headlined Friday’s second-round action as seeded players took the court after enjoying first-round byes.

Sabalenka moved smoothly into the third round with a 6-2, 6-0 victory over Evginiya Rodina, who was playing her eighth match since a return to competition at last year’s US Open after three years away from the game.

“Happy to win this match in two sets without struggling too much,” said Sabalenka, who has never made it past the round of 16 in the California desert.

Sabalenka, still barred from playing under her native flag of Belarus because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, next faces Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko, who beat 29th-seeded Croatian Donna Vekic 2-6, 6-2. 6-2.

Third-seeded Casper Ruud and former champion Cameron Norrie both eased into the third round with straight-sets victories.

For Ruud, a 6-2, 6-3 victory over former top-10 Argentinian Diego Schwartzman was a confidence-boosting win in a season in which he had so far failed to advance past the second round in three tour-level tournaments he had played.

For Norrie, however, a 6-2, 6-4 victory over Taiwanese qualifier Wu Tung-lin marked a continuation of the form that saw him reach finals last month in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro where he fell to Carlos Alcaraz in the first and beat Alcaraz in the second.

Schwartzman had won five of his eight prior meetings with Ruud, but the Norwegian, currently ranked fourth in the world, had little trouble against him on Friday, breaking him twice in the first set and once in the second to polish off the victory in an hour and 28 minutes.

“I lost to Diego here a couple of years ago so it was nice to get revenge,” said Ruud, a finalist at the French Open and US Open last year who was bundled out of the Australian Open in the second round in January.

“The goal was to try to play heavy and sometimes kind of mix up a little bit, come to the net and luckily today somehow that went well for me.”

In other early women’s action, Czech Barbora Krejcikova blew past Dayana Yastremska 6-1, 6-2 in just 69 minutes, avenging a defeat in Doha last year.

Former French Open champion Krejcikova is coming off an upset of top-ranked Iga Swiatek last month in the final at Dubai, where Krejcikova beat the top three players in the world.

World number five Daniil Medvedev, fresh off ATP victories Rotterdam, Doha and Dubai, was slated to open his campaign against American Brandon Nakashima on Friday night.

On the women’s side seventh-seeded Maria Sakkari, runner-up last year to Swiatek, trailed American Shelby Rogers 4-1 when a desert rain shower halted play.

Results on Friday at the Indian Wells WTA and ATP Masters 1000 tennis tournament (x denotes seeded player):

Men: 2nd round

Ilya Ivashka (BLR) bt Botic van de Zandschulp (NED x28) 7-5, 3-2 retired

Emil Ruusuvuori (FIN) bt Roberto Bautista (ESP x22) 7-6 (7/5), 6-2

Christian Garín (CHI) bt Yoshihito Nishioka (JPN x29) 6-4, 6-0

Casper Ruud (NOR x3) bt Diego Schwartzman (ARG) 6-2, 6-3

Cameron Norrie (GBR x10) bt Wu Tung-lin (TPE) 6-2, 6-4

Jason Kubler (AUS) bt Grigor Dimitrov (BUL x21) 2-6, 7-6 (7/5), 3-0 retired

Jordan Thompson (AUS) bt Stefanos Tsitsipas (GRE x2) 7-6 (7/0), 4-6, 7-6 (7/5)

Women: 2nd round

Anhelina Kalinina (UKR x27) bt Linda Fruhvirtová (CZE) 4-6, 6-4, 7-5

Veronika Kudermetova (RUS x11) bt Anna Blinkova (RUS) 6-3, 6-4

Petra Kvitova (CZE x15) bt Elizabeth Mandlik (USA) 6-1, 7-5

Jelena Ostapenko (LAT x24) bt Aliaksandra Sasnovich (BLR) 7-5, 3-6, 6-2

Rebecca Peterson (SWE) bt Zhang Shuai (CHN x22) 3-0 retired

Jil Teichmann (SUI) bt Belinda Bencic (SUI x9) 3-6, 6-3, 6-3

Barbora Krejcíková (CZE x16) bt Dayana Yastremska (UKR) 6-1, 6-2

Lesia Tsurenko (UKR) bt Donna Vekic (CRO x29) 2-6, 6-2, 6-2

Aryna Sabalenka (BLR x2) bt Evgeniya Rodina (RUS) 6-2, 6-0

Shiffrin equals record

American skier Mikaela Shiffrin equalled Ingemar Stenmark’s record of 86 World Cup wins on Friday with a resounding victory in the giant slalom at Are on what she called “a spectacular day”.

Shiffrin finished 0.64 seconds ahead of the Italian Federica Brignone to match the milestone that has stood for 34 years.

A few days shy of her 28th birthday her exceptional run continued with her 12th World Cup win after securing a fifth overall crystal globe last weekend.

She has a shot at claiming the record outright in Saturday’s slalom at the Swedish ski station where, fittingly, she had opened her World Cup account back in 2012 as a 17-year-old.

Are also happens to be Stenmark’s own home turf.

“His (Stenmark) legacy is synonymous with ski racing,” said Shiffrin.

“If anyone knows anything about ski racing at all and even if they don’t, they know Ingemar Stenmark. I don’t think that will ever pass. He set the standard for what ski racing has become.”

For Stenmark there was no comparison, declaring: “She’s much better than I was. She has everything. She has good physical strength. she has a good technique, strong head. I think it’s the combination of everything makes her so good.”

Shiffrin said being asked all the time “when I’m going to win 86 or 87, that’s a pretty cool place to be, even though it can be difficult to focus sometimes, but today I felt like the focus was there when I needed it to be.

“It was really fun to ski and that is how I hope it would be.”

“This is a spectacular day. It’s amazing, incredible,” added the Colorado-born skier.

Premier League’s best goals in February

Solidarity with Lineker after row with BBC

Gary Lineker was told by the BBC to “step back” from presenting his football show on Friday after the former England star sparked an impartiality row by criticising the British government’s new asylum policy.

The 62-year-old, who fronts the flagship Match of the Day programme, this week compared the language used to launch the new policy to the rhetoric of Nazi-era Germany on Twitter.

The BBC said it considered Lineker’s “recent social media activity to be a breach of our guidelines”, adding he should avoid taking sides on political issues.

“The BBC has decided that he will step back from presenting Match of the Day until we’ve got an agreed and clear position on his use of social media,” the broadcaster said in a statement.

Post that statement, Lineker’s colleagues stepped things up in solidarity.

With text inputs from AFP

Updated through the day