Bangladesh’s second visit to Australia and their first women’s ODI in the country began on a disappointing note as Australia ran out quick and convincing victors.

Annabel Sutherland showed why she is regarded as one of the most versatile fast-bowling allrounders in the world by taking 4 for 30. She kept the batters on their toes by varying the lengths and speeds as Bangladesh were bowled out for 166. Phoebe Litchfield’s  swift 77 helped Australia canter home with 24.2 overs and seven wickets to spare to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series.

The win meant Australia extended their unbeaten record in ODIs at the Allan Border Field in Brisbane to 22 games.

Bangladesh might have put up an even lower total if not for an intent-filled innings from Ritu Moni.  Batting at No. 7, she hit two fours in her first four balls following a phase where Bangladesh scored only 35 in about 15 overs.

Asked to bat first, Bangladesh were stung first ball when Megan Schutt got one off a length to hoop in big to have Fargana Hoque caught at slip. In her next over, Schutt trapped the other opener Sarmin Sultana lbw to become only the third Australia woman to 150 ODI wickets.

When Sutherland’s bouncer cramped Sharmin Akhter for room, leaving her unable to get any control on the pull, Bangladesh were truly under the cosh, having lost three wickets inside the first powerplay.

That soon became 48 for 4, which prompted captain Nigar Sultana, perhaps Bangladesh’s best batter, to go into a shell. She hardly looked to score from that point and was happy to defend and merely prevent further wickets from falling.

The ploy was evident from the fact that Nigar didn’t put Sutherland under pressure when she bowled three successive no-balls in the 12th over. What’s more, unaware of the free hit on offer, she ducked under a short ball as well. Shorna Akter, too, curtailed her aggressive instincts to support her captain.

Bangladesh crawled at three runs per over through the middle phase before Tahlia McGrath had Nigar caught behind for 29 off 83 balls. Nigar perhaps half-referred to her own innings when, after the game, she said that Bangladesh “need to be cautious against the new ball and get the intent right”.

As soon as she fell, Moni and Shorna started to put back the pressure on Australia’s spinners. Moni fetched a couple of sweeps from outside off to hit them through midwicket. Shorna also used her feet more frequently.

Moni looked good to score her second half-century in ODIs but was hampered by cramps. That hindered her running, and eventually she was run-out for 45 off 63 balls. Sutherland was generous with her use of the back-of-the-hand slower ones from then on to keep the rest of the batters on a leash.

Australia were never going to be challenged in a paltry chase of 167, and Georgia Voll and Litchfield hit five fours in the first five overs of the chase to get them going.

That is when Bangladesh found another performer of note. Seventeen-year-old Habiba Islam, on ODI debut, bowled a sharp bouncer which got rid of Voll. Habiba, who made her T20I debut against India in 2024 as a 15-year-old, got the ball to nibble around at high pace. While her first spell was expensive, she returned in the middle overs to get Beth Mooney caught brilliantly at midwicket. She bowled the length ball outside leg and got it to move in late, and Mooney could only spoon it to Fargana, who ran in from the circle and completed a diving catch.

But between these two bits of celebration for Habiba and Bangladesh, Litchfield had almost killed the chase. She moved around the crease to hit Marufa Aklter for three successive fours in the seventh over of the chase, and then muscled Habiba over mid-on for the only six in the match.

She played her trademark reverse sweep off Nahida Akter and soon got to fifty off just 35 balls. Her second-wicket stand with Ellyse Perry was worth 89 off 67 balls with Perry contributing only 15 off 23. Until the time Litchfield stepped out and drove Rabeya Khan straight to cover, it looked as if she would complete a century even with so few runs to get.

Scores:
Australia Women 168 for 3 in 25.4 overs  (Phoebe Litchfield 77, Ellyse Perry 26*, Annabel Sutherland 25*;  Habiba Islam 2-36) beat Bangladesh Women 166 in 49.4 overs (Sharmin Akhter 24, Nigar Sultana 29, Shorna Akter 21, Ritu Moni 45; Megan Schutt 2-19,  Ammabel Sutherland 4-30) by seven wickets

[Cricinfo]

The U.S. Navy ship USS Tulsa (LCS 16) set sail from the port of Colombo today, 09 October 2026.

On her departure, the Sri Lanka Navy extended a traditional naval farewell to the ship.

USS Tulsa, a Littoral Combat Ship, and arrived in the island on 7 October on a replenishment visit and departed the island on completion of intended purposes.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize to Navanethem “Navi” Pillay.

The committee’s announcement of the 125th Nobel Peace Prize, made on Friday in Oslo, said the prestigious award would go to the South African jurist for her work to promote peace and international law.

The committee said in a statement that Pillay, a former United Nations rights chief, had been instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted.

“At a time of existential challenges – including more wars and conflicts than the world has seen in a long time – international law is no longer just a supplement to peace and security. It is an absolute necessity,” the statement read.

Committee chair Jorgen Watne Frydnes said the system of international law was “under tremendous pressure” and its institutions were “under attack”. It is judges, he continued, “who guard the thin red line between order and chaos”.

Prosecuting crimes against humanity

A South African of Indian Tamil origin, the 85-year-old Pillay was the first woman to start a law practice in Natal, in 1967.

She acted as a defence lawyer for Nelson Mandela, who previously won the peace prize, and other anti-apartheid activists, and was the first woman of colour to serve on South Africa’s High Court.

She later served on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court, and as UN high commissioner for human rights.

The committee highlighted her role in establishing that rape and sexual violence can be constituted as a crime against humanity and genocide, during her time on the Rwanda tribunal.

She chaired the UN Independent International Commission of inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory, which concluded last year that Israel committed genocide in Gaza.

“We concluded that the State of Israel is responsible for the commission of four genocidal acts in Gaza with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, as such,” she declared in a presentation to the UN General Assembly.

She also declared Israel’s president, prime minister and former defence minister had “incited the commission” of genocide.

She currently sits on the International Court of Justice in the case in which Myanmar stands accused of genocide.

Verification

Reacting to the award, Pillay said she thought at first it must be a joke. “Being a lawyer and a judge, I still want to verify this,” she remarked.

“The last thing I did is the delivery of the report on Gaza, naming what’s happening there as genocide,” she continued. “One of the main reactions to that report is paying tribute to me for my courage. And you can imagine how surprised I was, why would you need courage to speak the truth?” she added.

The prize, which is worth 12 million Swedish crowns ($1.2m), will be presented in Oslo ‌on ‌December 10, on the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the awards in his 1895 will.

Four other awards were also announced earlier this week, for medicine, physics, chemistry and literature.

The Nobel committee received nominations for 287 candidates for this year’s peace prize. Other contenders included the International Space Station, emergency teams in Sudan, children’s advocates in Ukraine and two top international courts.

United States President Donald Trump has long coveted the prize and repeatedly said he deserves it, despite his ongoing war on Iran.

Last year’s winner, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, handed her medal to Trump after the US deposed former President Nicholas Maduro.

Pillay joked that she might share her prize with the US leader.

“If you clap a little bit more I may share this prize with Trump,” she said in a video posted on social media by the Secretary General of Amnesty International that showed Pillay being applauded after the announcement of the award.

[Aljazeera]