Dubai: The southern hemisphere beat their northern counterparts 6-4 in a celebrity 10 card bout between former cricketers and rugby players at Dubai Sports City on Friday.

Non Evans and Shane Williams beat Teeny Aiken and Bolla Conradie to pull the north back to 5-4 before the main event, where former England all-rounder Adam Hollioake failed to level the scores after losing by split decision to New Zealand full-back Carlos Spencer.

Santi Stiglingh, Deanne Makea, Jose Pereira, Conrad Jantjes and Brian Lima gave the south an early advantage beating Hollie Murray, Jessica Aziz, Ed Armitage, Sean Long and Shane Byrne respectively to lead 5-2 by the seventh fight. Only Shane Curran and Lee Radford had defended the north’s pride up until that point with wins over Jason de Bruize and Epi Taione.

Fighting Chance Dubai was organised to raise funds for South African triathlete Richard Holland, who was left with life changing injuries after being knocked off his bike while training in Dubai in October.