Outside Edge

Sport is often credited with keeping wayward kids on the straight and narrow but it can help to catch the crooks too. Former jockey Simon Sellars and his horse Toby cornered a burglar by galloping after him as he ran away from a pub in Bedlington, Northumberland.

And at a bowling alley in Hillsboro, Oregon, elderly members of the VIP Trio Seniors League chased down a 16-year-old who snatched two purses and "dog-piled" him. But sport can give the game away too. Frazier Turner, 50, of St Paul, Minnesota, held up the TCF Bank with a golf shoe cleat tool, stole $600 and was arrested at the Phalen golf course a mile away after he stopped to have a hit at the driving range on his getaway.

£4,270

The bill for a curry ordered by the Bangladesh batsman Habibul Bashar to celebrate his 37th birthday in Dubai. A bit pricey? That's because he had it flown in from Amish restaurant in Chobham, Surrey. Afterburners included.

Lingering doubts of the week

American football just got interesting. In an utterly sexist way. The Lingerie Bowl has acted as an alternative to the half-time show at the Super Bowl since 2004, with models playing seven-on-seven tackle football in their underwear. Now these well-padded, very fit young ladies kick off a Friday night league of their own on 4 September. Back in Blighty, the Peewee Boyz of Middleton, Leeds, have won their first trophy at the International Cheer Championships. All under 10 years old, they are Europe's first all-male cheerleader team, formed as the result of a Primary Care Trust anti-obesity programme. All good, healthy fun. That'll stop the Yanks going on about how evil the NHS is, surely.

Good week for...

Charles Coventry, the Zimbabwe batsman equalled the world-record one-day score, 194, against Bangladesh... Jamie Stewart, 17, Rob Drew and Richard Catton, both 21, youngest trio ever to win bowls' national men's triples crown... and impoverished South African football fans working in healthcare and education, will receive 120,000 free tickets to 2010 World Cup.

Bad week for...

Plaxico Burress, former New York Giants wide receiver, sentenced to two years in prison for possession of firearms after accidentally shooting himself in the leg in a nightclub... and Sebastian Szubski, Brazilian Olympic canoeist charged with assault after allegedly putting a man in a headlock on a flight back from World Canoeing and Kayaking Championship in Nova Scotia.

Sinking feeling of the week

If the climax of the Ashes left you struggling to breathe with the occasional sinking feeling, spare a thought for the players in the Brambles cricket match. It started at around 6.30am yesterday in the middle of the Solent, while the Brambles sand bar was exposed by receding tides, and lasted about half an hour, whereupon the members of the Royal Southern Yacht Club and the Island Sailing Club felt the tide turning against them. The game may well have been watched by the cricket-loving seagull who stole a bail during the England Lions game against the Australians at Canterbury last Sunday. Next up: hockey on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower. What the puck?