Sporting Digest: Netball

The 1999 World Championships in New Zealand's South Island city of Christchurch will bring together a record 28 competing countries, organisers said yesterday. A total of 27 nations entered the 1995 event in Birmingham.

1999 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS (Christchurch, New Zealand) Seeding order: Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, England, Jamaica, Trinidad-Tobago, Cook Islands, Malawi, Samoa, Barbados, Canada, United States, Papua New Guinea, Namibia, Wales, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Scotland, Hong Kong, Malaysia. Unseeded nations: Botswana, Fiji, Niue, Vanuatu, Zambia, Pakistan, Tanzania.