General

Australia may only begin their Ashes tour on Thursday, but bet365 have already published their prices for each team's top batsman and bowler in the five-match series

And then there were two. In contrasting styles, the San Antonio Spurs and the defending champions, the Detroit Pistons, will face off in the NBA Finals, starting on Thursday night

Having lost his rhythm in South Africa last winter, Steve Harmison has looked back to somewhere near his best in the early part of the summer and his form is likely to be important if England are to have any chance of stealing the Ashes from the all-conqu

Shane Warne, Ricky Ponting and Glenn McGrath may be the men most talked about when the Australia team springs to mind, but there is one man who could prove to be more important than all the rest in this summer's Ashes series; Adam Gilchrist

England may be world champions and the Northern Hemisphere may boast some of the world's greatest players, but the British and Irish Lions are still huge underdogs to win their Test series in New Zealand

Rafael Nadal delivered exactly what shrewd observers had been expecting on Sunday when he won the French Open at the first time of asking, with a fabulous four-set victory over Mariano Puerta at Roland Garros rewarding those who backed him as the 5/2 favo

If Australia are to win the Ashes again this summer, then captain Ricky Ponting is likely to play a big part with both bat and tactical nous

England may have cruised to a 2-0 victory over Bangladesh in the summer's first Test series, but the manner of their second Test victory has left the bookmakers even more convinced that they don't stand a chance of winning the big one, the Ashes

The second big fight of the weekend is an all-British affair as Scott Harrison defends his WBO featherweight title against Michael Brodie, also at the Manchester Arena

One of Britain's most successful fighters, Ricky Hatton, gets his moment to shine this weekend when he fights the mighty Kostya Tszyu for the IBF light-middleweight crown at the Manchester Arena in the early hours of Sunday morning

Well, who'd have thought it? After just two wins from their previous 20 Tests, and having been hammered in the one-day series, West Indies finally produced a strong performance to win the first Test against Pakistan in Barbados.

Well, if we didn't already know it, then last week's shambles of a Test match at Lord's showed that Bangladesh still have a long way to go if they're to become a competitive side in the Test arena.

Sporting Index have been quick to update their player markets after England's hammering of Bangladesh at Lord's last week and it's no surprise to see the quotes for home players shoot through the roof.

Spread betting isn't complicated and once the simple concept has been grasped, it becomes extremely easy to understand

The new and improved bethilo site takes spread betting to a new level

The NBA Conference Finals head into their crucial third and fourth games this weekend but it's already looking like it could be a heavyweight clash between the San Antonio Spurs and the Detroit Pistons in the NBA finals

The news that Jonny Murtagh will be free to ride favourite Motivator in Saturday's Vodafone Derby at Epsom has not gone unnoticed by the bookmakers with the Michael Bell-trained horse cut to 9/4 (3.25) from 5/2 (3.50) for the Blue Riband event of the flat

For many people, summer begins officially on Thursday when England take on Bangladesh in the first Test at Lord's.

West Indies have to get their act together: they are about to begin a two-Test series against Pakistan on Thursday but they enter it in the worst possible form, having now lost nine one-dayers in the bounce.

Sporting Index have once again come up with their usual array of special markets for the forthcoming two-Test series between England and Bangladesh, which gets underway on Thursday at Lord's.