The Week in Review: Sport

IT began with a solo sailor stitching his own tongue during an Atlantic storm and featured a football manager needled by defeat adding to the depression over Merseyside by bad-mouthing his players.

Bertrand de Broc, a French circumnavigator, operated on himself after being hit in the face with a rope. Graeme Souness was gobsmacked by Bolton Wanderers, whose 2-0 FA Cup replay win at Anfield had the Liverpool manager reaching for the knife. Some of his players were interested only in 'getting another move or another lump of money', Souness moaned in his misery after the third-round defeat, a fate shared by Anfield neighbours Everton 24 hours earlier.

Part of Souness's problem is that he has sold players he considered past their prime in their early thirties. John Lowe showed he is still in his pomp at 47 by becoming the oldest world champion in darts history, beating a 30-year-old in the final.

John Emburey on the other hand was not one of the fabulous forties, the venerable spinner being hit for 12 sixes in two games as England's cricketers warmed up away from the hot spots in riot-troubled India. After a nine-wicket defeat on Wednesday, the tourists managed to beat a stand-in team by two wickets with two runs to spare in Delhi yesterday. Emburey was not called upon to operate, unlike Monsieur de Broc.