Latest News
Radha Yadav, batters lead India to 5-0 T20I series sweep over Bangladesh
India extended their dominance over Bangladesh to complete a 5-0 T20I series sweep with a 21-run win in the fifth and final game in Sylhet on Thursday. India posted 156 for 5 after opting to bat, thanks to strong hands from Dayalan Hemalatha, Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana and a late cameo from Richa Ghosh. Though Ritu Moni and Shorifa Khatun fought back in the second half of the chase after Radha Yadav’s three-wicket burst, it wasn’t enough for a consolation win for Bangladesh.
Radha, on her comeback for India after being off the national radar for a year, ended the series as the most successful bowler with ten wickets, which got her the Player-of-the-Series award to go with the Player-of-the-Match award for her three-wicket haul on Thursday.
Coming off a 2-1 T20I series defeat at home against Australia, India will be happy to have produced a convincing series victory in Bangladesh, where the T20 World Cup will be held in October. Bangladesh, though, have lost eight T20Is in a row now, five here and three earlier against Australia, all at home.
But, despite losing five wickets by the halfway stage in the chase, Bangladesh went past the 120-run mark for the first time in the series, thanks to Moni’s 33-ball 37 and Shorifa’s unbeaten 28 from 21 balls. However, there was little of note from the other batters.
Titas Sadhu gave India their first breakthrough when she removed Sobhana Mostary for a nine-ball 13 in the third over. In the next over, Radha struck, dismissing Dilara Akter as she miscued a pull to mid-off. Radha’s third double-wicket over of the series came in the ninth of the innings when she knocked out Nigar Sultana’s stump with a loopy delivery that spun in, and three balls later, she trapped Rubya Haider lbw for 20. After that over, she had figures of 2-0-4-3. She finished with 3 for 24 after being targeted by Moni and Shorifa.
After ten overs, Bangladesh were 52 for 5, needing 105 from the remaining 60 balls.
But Moni fought back. She charged down the track against the spinners, used width when it was on offer to score towards backward point, and played a ramp shot to Pooja Vastrakar as well. With Shorifa , she shared a 57-run partnership off 41 balls for the sixth wicket, bringing the equation down to 53 runs from 24 balls. However, S Asha, playing her second T20I, dismissed Moni in the 17th over to end Bangladesh’s hopes. Asha finished with 2 for 25 from her four overs.
With Bangladesh sloppy in the field, India raced to 71 for 2 after ten overs, Mandhana and Hemalatha taking control after Shafali Verma, playing her 100th international game, fell early. Mandhana, in particular, showed good intent in her 25-ball 33, hitting four clean fours and an inside-out six over extra cover off offspinner Sultana Khatun. However, she was given out lbw in the eighth over, with replays suggesting that the ball hit her pad just outside off stump as she missed with an attempted back-foot punch. No DRS meant Mandhana had to go.
Hemalatha, at No. 3, started slowly, scoring 13 off her first 17 balls. She was also dropped when on 8. However, she accelerated, finding her touch soon to score 37 off 28 balls. This included two powerful hits to long-on and long-off for sixes and two fours – a sweep and a swpie over midwicket after charging down the track.
India’s innings really took off when she was joined by Harmanpreet. The two scored 60 off 42 deliveries for the third wicket with the India captain chipping in with a 24-ball 30. After a run-a-ball 12, Harmanpreet picked up her pace, hitting three fours off Moni in the 13th over. However, Harmanpreet’s wicket – trapped lbw by left-arm spinner Nahida Akter when she went across for a sweep shot – triggered a mini collapse as India went from 122 for 2 to 124 for 5 in six balls.
After a few quiet overs, Ghosh injected some impetus into the innings, teeing off to hit an unbeaten 28 off 17 balls, hitting three fours and a six over the bowlers’ head to help India ger past 150, which was well beyond Bangladesh’s reach.
Brief scores:
India Women 156 for 5 in 20 overs (Dayalan Hemalatha 37, Smriti Mandhana 33, Harmanpreet Kaur 30, Richa Ghosh 28*; Sultana Khatun 1-26, Rabeya Khan 2-28, Nahida Akter 2-27) beat Bangladesh Women 135 for 6 in 20 overs (Rubya Haider 20, Ritu Moni 37, Shorifa Khatun 28*; Titas Sadhu 1-27, Radha Yadav 3-24, Asha Sobhana 2-25) by 21 runs
Seven students and a teacher have been killed in Bangladesh after a landslide hit a girls’ school inside a refugee camp
The Islamic study centre in the coastal city of Cox’s Bazar was buried by mud and debris on Wednesday afternoon, sparking frantic search and rescue efforts. It is unclear how many people were inside the school.
The country has been battered by monsoon rains since Sunday, with several deadly landslides reported in Cox’s Bazar.
More than one million Rohingya people live there in what is the world’s largest refugee settlement, having fled a deadly military crackdown in Myanmar.
Rescuers pulled 13 people from the mud that engulfed their school hut, eight of whom died, the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Mohammed Mizanur Rahman said.
“Some of them are seven, eight, 11 or 12 years old,” Panna Akhter, a local district officer, told BBC Bangla.
The other five children were taken to hospital for treatment.
Earlier, officials said other landslides had killed at least eight Rohingya refugees, including five children, since Sunday.
Thousands of Rohingya, one of Myanmar’s many ethnic minorities, were killed and more than 700,000 fled to neighbouring Bangladesh during an army crackdown in Myanmar in 2017
The group, which is primarily Muslim, are denied citizenship by the government of Myanmar, a Buddhist-majority country.
Many face poor living conditions in Bangladesh, living in makeshift homes of tarpaulin and bamboo on steep hillsides.
More rain is forecast for the coming days, with authorities issuing warnings for more landslides and floods, and evacuating families in high risk areas.
(BBC)
The US has launched a new round of strikes on Iran after President Donald Trump signalled he’d “hit them hard again tonight” following an overnight exchange of attacks on Tuesday.
Explosions have been reported by Iranian state media in parts of the country’s south, including Sirik and Bandar Abbas – port cities on the Strait of Hormuz.
After the latest strikes, Trump said in a post on Truth Social: “This is in retribution for yesterday’s bombing of ships by Iran. If it happens again, it will get much worse!”
Iran has not yet commented, but senior officials earlier warned any attack from the US would be met with an “immediate response”.
US Central Command (Centcom) said the strikes were carried out to “further degrade Tehran’s ability to threaten freedom of navigation” in the vital waterway.
In a statement it added: “The United States is holding Iran accountable for recent unjustified aggression against commercial shipping and civilian crews freely navigating a vital international waterway.”
Several explosions have also reportedly been heard in other parts of the Iranian coast, including the cities of Konarak and Chabahar.
Iranian state TV reported eight explosions in Bandar Abbas, and said two missiles had hit the ports of both Sirik and Jask – also in southern Iran.
It added that two projectiles hit the island of Abu Musa, which has been the subject of a longstanding ownership dispute between Iran and the United Arab Emirates.
Air defence systems have been activated in Bandar Abbas, according to reports in Iranian state media.
The extent of damage from the US strikes is not yet known, but Iranian media has reported power cuts in Chabahar and a fire at an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) barracks in Bushehr.
Two of three power lines cut off in Chabahar had been restored quickly and a third would be operational soon, the Iranian Students’ News Agency said.
On Tuesday, the US military said it had launched “powerful” strikes in response to attacks on three tankers in the strait.
On Wednesday, Iran said it targeted US military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait in retaliation.
Tuesday into Wednesday saw the worst exchange of strikes between the US and Iran since the deal – known as a memorandum of understanding (MoU) – was signed on 17 June.
Trump said on Wednesday that the ceasefire agreement signed last month with Iran is “over”, and added the US “hit them very
hard last night” and will “probably hit them hard again tonight”.
In response, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a post on X: “We do not answer vulgarity with vulgarity, but with action: fearlessly and with great valour.”
The deal between the US and Iran included 14 points, among them a 60-day period for a ceasefire during which negotiations should continue, the safe passage of vessels through the Strait of Hormuz and the US lifting sanctions on Iran.
The 60-day-period for negotiations is not yet up, but Trump has said he saw further talks as “a waste of time”.
These are not the first strikes since the MoU was signed.
The US launched a series of strikes on Iran on 26 June after an Iranian projectile hit a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz.
Further US strikes took place on 27 June, following an attack on a tanker. But later that month both sides had agreed to “stand down”.
Pakistan is searching for a Boeing cargo aircraft missing over the Arabian Sea with five crew members on board.
The Karachi-bound 737-400 plane operated by a Pakistani carrier took off from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates and lost contact with air traffic control about 9:18pm (16:18 GMT) on Tuesday after reporting a navigational system fault, the Pakistan Airports Authority said.
Minutes later, data from Flightradar24, a global flight-tracking service, showed the plane losing nearly 1,525 metres (5,000ft) of altitude in less than a minute before climbing about 1,830 metres (6,000ft) in the next 30 seconds. It then entered a final, near-vertical descent from a height of 11,140 metres (36,550ft).
Its last transmitted position placed it at 335 metres (1,100ft), descending at 22,400 feet per minute, or about 400 kilometres per hour. All contact was lost about 155 nautical miles (287km or 178 miles) west of Karachi.
Security sources told Al Jazeera a Pakistani navy ship, a merchant vessel operated by the Pakistan National Shipping Corporation and two navy aircraft are taking part in the search.
No wreckage or survivors have been found so far.
“We continue to pray, earnestly, for the safety of our colleagues,” K2 Airways, the Karachi-based private cargo airline that operated the flight, said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that it was fully cooperating with authorities on the search.
It was the only plane in the K2 Airways fleet.
If a crash is confirmed, the incident would mark Pakistan’s first major civilian air disaster since May 2020 when a Pakistan International Airlines plane crashed short of the runway in Karachi, killing 97 of the 99 people on board.
The 27-year-old K2 Airways’ 737-400 has flown for six operators.
Delivered to Russia’s Aeroflot as a passenger aircraft in 1999, it later flew for Garuda Indonesia before being converted into a freighter in 2012 for Belgium’s TNT Airways.
Aircraft tracking records show it was withdrawn from service in June 2023 and parked in France for about 10 months.
Irish company AerCap reactivated the aircraft in April 2024 before placing it back into storage, first in Jakarta and later in Karachi, where it remained for nearly six months before entering service with K2 Airways in December 2024.
In a statement, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed grief over the incident and offered his sympathies to the families of the missing crew members.
(Aljazeera)
Several spells of showers will occur in the Western and Sabaragamuwa provinces and in Galle, Matara, Kandy and Nuwara-Eliya districts
Prison officers urge Justice Minister to protect their colleague who opened fire
Negombo Prison riot: Ensuring protection of prisoners fundamental responsibility of the state – UN
Govt. considers banning or restricting social media for children under 16: PM
Brandix donates vital ECG machine to Mirigama Base Hospital Emergency Care Unit
High-scoring draw gives West Indies rare series win
‘Dates have the highest sugar content to fight Coronavirus’
Sunday Island 27 December – Headlines
#SundayIsland 17th December – Headlines
Sunday Island – 28th March
Sunday Island Headlines – 21 March
Sunday Island – 21st February – Headlines
-
News4 days agoSingapore-based Buddhist monk marks nearly four decades of humanitarian service
-
News5 days agoFreedom 250: US Embassy celebrates America’s 250th Independence Day through magic of American cinema
-
News6 days agoCIABOC to question Harak Kata on Rs. 200 mn bribery allegation
-
News6 days agoSLAF conducts successful rescue mission under UN command in Central African Republic
-
News3 days agoAI concerned over proposed SL military deployment in Haiti
-
Business6 days ago‘Dialog Air Fibre powers a new era of Ultra Fast Home WiFi’
-
News6 days agoUNEP support pledged to strengthen Sri Lanka’s Environmental Priorities
-
Features4 days agoThe NPP’s New Challenge: Balancing Easter Lawfare and Economic Welfare