SYDNEY: Australian cricket team manager Steve Bernard has been severely reprimanded over a photograph of him and two players wielding powergul rifles with Pakistani troops near the Afghan border.

SYDNEY: Shane Warne's victoria state cricketers have signed a no drink pledge during matches. At the instigation of coach John Scholes, the Victorians have agreed to go teetotal in the leadup to and during Sheffield State Games.

They have also agreed to stay off alcohol when representing the team at public receptions even though the club's major sponsor is Carlton and United Breweries.

Scholes is also encouraging the players -- headed by spin-artist Warne -- to smoke less in public.

``The players have embraced it. We don't think it's acceptable for our public image and we don't think it is ideal when you are preparing for a cricket match,'' Scholes told the Melbourne Age today.

Vice-captain Dareen Berry added: ``What other sport allows youa drink during a game? We'll have our celebratory drink or whatever afterward, but if we're serious it's not right to be drinking at night when you're in the middle of a game.''

James Bond car on offer for Games vips

SYDNEY: Sydney Olympic organisers are considering buying a James Bond-style car to Ferry Vips around during the 2000 Games.

The purpose-built, high-security car from BMW can be started by remote control to check for booby traps, has bullet-proof armouring, a fire extinguisher that runs the length of the car and in case all else fails, a multi-layered glass passenger cabin that can be sealed off with its own oxygen supply.

``James bond may be a fictional character but his car is almost here,'' BMW corporate affairs manager John Kananghinis said today.

The key point is the three-tonne car looks exactly like the two-tonne 7-series model.

Bjorkman takes on Stefanki as coach

STOCKHOLM: Sweden's Jonas Bjorkman has taken on American coach Larry Stefanki, former trainer ofMarcelo Rios, the Svenska Dagbladet Daily said

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Bjorkman, 26, and Stefanki have signed an initial four-week contract starting on Monday. If things work out well they will sign a one-year contract, the paper said.

The Swede has been without a trainer since he parted company with Swedish trainer Fredrik Rosengren earlier this season.

After a sensational 1997, Bjorkman has had a moderate season in 1998 and has slipped to 12 in the rankings from four at end-1997.

Rios fired Stefanki, the man behind his rise to number one, about six weeks before the US Open in September.

Australian weightlifter tests positive

SYDNEY: Australian weightlifter Johnny Nguyen faces a two-year ban after testing positive to steroid Stanozolol, according to a newspaper report.

Australian weightlifting executive director Robert Kabbas said he could not confirm the report in the Sydney Morning Herald.

``We are confirming that one of our athletes has tested positive but because there hasn't been a resulton the B sample we can't confirm the athlete's name,'' Kabbas said.

The Herald reported that Nguyen was tested before last month's Commonwealth Games, where he failed to live up to expectations. The results were not available until after the Games.

US skier Rasmussen calls it a career

PARK CITY: Three-time Olympic alpine skier Kyle Rasmussen of Angels Camp, California, the only American man to win two World Cup Ski races in the 1990s, announced his retirement yesterday after 13 years with the US Ski team.

Rasmussen was the last of the big three downhillers who lifted the team to unprecedented heights during the decade. Tommy Moe of Jackson, Wyoming, who won the 1994 Olympic Downhill gold medal and the super-G silver, and Aj Kitt of boulder, Colorado, bronze medalist in the 1993 World Championships downhill, announced their retirements last spring.

FBI's most-wanted list charged in Olympic bombing

WASHINGTON: Eric Robert Rudolph, one of the FBI's ten most-wanted fugitives, wascharged yesterday with the 1996 bombing at the Olympics and two other attacks in Atlanta.

Attorney general Janet Reno, accompanied at a news conference by FBI director Louis Freeh, said the criminal complaint charging Rudolph with the Olympic blast and the 1997 bombings of a gay bar and an abortion clinic was being filed with a federal court.

``Eric Rudolph is on the run,'' Reno said. `` We are going to keep searching until we find him and we're are not going to rest until we bring him to justice.''

Freeh said Rudolph now is charged with six bombings, including the three attacks in Atlanta and the Janaury 29 bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama abortion clinic for which he was charged earlier. Freeh mentioned six bombs, because secondary bombs were placed at both the Atlanta clinic and at the bar.

Singapore legalises football betting

SINGAPORE: Singapore has legalised gambling on soccer matches, news reports in the conservative island republic said.

Illegal football betting has become a hugebusiness in the tiny and prosperous city-state, the business times said. Hundreds of millions of dollars were illegally bet on world cup matches earlier this year, the newspaper said.

Singapore's former national team was plagued by match-fixing scandals. The country withdrew from the popular Malaysia Cup football competition three years ago and formed its own local league, made up of eleven suburban clubs.

A new provision in Singapore's common games houses act, signed, allows the Singapore pools agency to accept bets on local league games starting on January one, 1999.

Singapore pools runs the country's three legal lotteries, which netted bets of 2.5 billion Singapore dollars last year.