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INS Kuthar sets sail from Colombo
The Indian Naval Ship (INS) Kuthar which arrived in Sri Lanka on 03 Mar 25 on an official visit, departed the island today (06 Mar).
The Sri Lanka Navy bade customary farewell to the departing ship at the Port of Colombo, following naval traditions.
During their stay in Colombo, crew members of INS Kuthar explored some tourist attractions in Colombo. Additionally, they also engaged in training exchange programmes arranged by the Sri Lanka Navy, aimed at enhancing mutual cooperation.
Further, Indian naval personnel participated in a Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure (VBSS) training programme hosted by the Sri Lanka Navy’s Special Boat Squadron (SBS).
A notable feature on the itinerary was a yoga session conducted by INS Kuthar, which saw naval personnel of both countries participating.
Meanwhile, the enhanced cooperation and interoperability fostered will provide a strong foundation for the Sri Lanka Navy to collectively and effectively respond to emerging trends and challenges in the Indian Ocean Region.

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Trump threatens ‘hell’ for Iran over Hormuz Strait as deadline approaches
United States President Donald Trump has threatened to attack civilian infrastructure inside Iran, including bridges and power plants, if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened by his stated deadline of Monday.
Trump made the threat in an expletive-laden social media post on Sunday, in which he repeated previous threats to pummel vital infrastructure across Iran
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F****** Strait, you crazy b*******, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
On March 26, Trump set a 10-day deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz , a key shipping route for the global energy market, where traffic has ground to a halt since the US and Israel first attacked Iran on February 28.
He told Fox News on Sunday that Iran was currently negotiating with the US and that he believed the two could reach a deal before the deadline.
Iranian officials have slammed Trump’s threats and promised to retaliate for any attacks on their infrastructure.
“Once again, the US president openly threatens to destroy infrastructure essential to civilian survival in Iran,” Iran’s mission to the United Nations said in response to Trump’s threats.
“The international community and all states have legal obligations to prevent such atrocious acts of war crimes. They must act now. Tomorrow is too late,” it added.
Seyyed Mehdi Tabatabaei, deputy for communications at the Iranian president’s office, also stated that the strait would only be reopened following the payment of reparations for damages caused by the war.
He said those payments would come in the form of transit fees through a “new legal regime” around the strait, consistent with previous Iranian statements that it may seek to translate its control over the strait into a system whereby ships passing through pay a fee even after the war ends.
Tabatabaei dismissed Trump’s threats as a sign that the US has “resorted to obscenities and nonsense out of sheer desperation and anger”.
The US president has frequently repeated that Iran is seeking a deal to end the war and that fighting will end soon since the conflict began. Iran has stated that it is not seeking to end the war and has vowed to step up escalation across the region if its infrastructure is targeted.
Throughout the war, US officials have threatened Iran with overwhelming violence if it does not capitulate to US demands. Last week, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth threatened to send Iran “back to the Stone Age”.
US-Israeli strikes have already targeted civilian infrastructure and facilities, including bridges, schools, healthcare facilities, and universities. Experts have warned that some of those strikes could constitute war crimes.
Asked if he was concerned about the impact of targeting infrastructure such as bridges and power plants on Iran’s civilian population, Trump told the Wall Street Journal that he was not.
“No, they want us to do it,” he said during an interview, adding that Iranians are “living in hell”.
Trump also declined to offer a timeline for the end of the war, stating only that “I will let you know pretty soon”.
The US president has said that he will hold a news conference in the White House on Monday.
Trump also offered additional details about the operation to locate and extract the pilot of an F-15E fighter jet that was shot down over Iran on Friday.
“We have rescued the seriously wounded, and really brave, F-15 Crew Member/Officer, from deep inside the mountains of Iran,” he said in a separate social media post on Sunday.
“An AMAZING show of bravery and talent by all!”
[Aljazeera]
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Tim David, Rajat Patidar inflict bruising defeat on Chennai Super Kings
Defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru [RCB] razed Chennai Super Kings’ [CSK] attack and the record books, in front of their beloved fans at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.
After being on 91 for 1 in ten overs, RCB nearly tripled that in the last ten, pushing the limits of T20 power-hitting. RCB’s 250 for 3 was their third highest total in the IPL and the highest ever by any team against CSK in the league. In response, CSK lost their top three inside three overs and eventually slid to their third successive defeat in IPL 2026.
The Chinnaswamy surface was tacky in the early exchanges, according to Devdutt Padikkal who scored 50 off 29 balls, and the outfield was unusually slow, with quite a few strong hits plugging in the outfield. While the surface settled later in the innings, the outfield remained slow. Tim David and Rajat Patidar didn’t feel the need to hit the ball into the outfield, especially when they had the power to keep launching the ball into the night sky.
David and Patidar faced 44 balls between them and sent 14 of those disappearing over the boundary. The entire CSK batting line-up could manage only 11 sixes.
After being asked to bat, RCB needed 20 balls for the first boundary of the day. Both Matt Henry and Khaleel Ahmed hit hard lengths and made scoring hard for Phil Salt and Virat Kohli. It was Anshul Kamboj who provided CSK with the opening breakthrough when he had Kohli caught by Shivam Dube at long-on for 28 off 18 balls. Dube redeemed himself after dropping Kohli on 7 at mid-on off Khaleel Ahmed in the third over.
With the ball not coming onto the bat, Salt laboured to 15 off 16 balls. A brace of swatted fours off Kamboj then freed him up, but Shivam Dube, bowling for the first time in this season, struck with his third ball to stop Salt on 46 off 30 balls with a cutter that was banged into the pitch.
Padikkal, who had dashed out the blocks on the opening day of the season, wasn’t allowed to do so on this track. He started slowly as well – he was on 17 off 16 balls at one point – but then put then put the pedal to the floor and converted it into a 28-ball half-century. It was his second successive fifty, but it certainly wasn’t the story of the day.
David and Patidar came together at 151 for 3 at the start of the 15th over after Overton had knocked Padikkal over by cranking it up to 148kph. The carnage created by David and Patidar turned out to be the story of the day.
With only 35 balls left in the innings, David took strike for 25 of those and crashed an unbeaten 70. Only one other batter has scored as many or more without facing a ball in the first 14 overs of a T20 innings (where ball-by-ball data is available).
David was particularly brutal on Overton, taking him for a sequence 6,4,6,6,6 in the 19th over that yielded 30 runs. All of those hits had the Chinnaswamy in a frenzy. One of those even had Kohli off his seat in the dressing room and applauding David. The last of that sequence was a 106-metre monster six that disappeared out of the ground.
At the other end, Patidar had the best seat to this six-hitting show. He didn’t face a single ball for almost three overs between overs 17 and 20. In all, he faced just five balls since the 16th over. Prior to that, he had played some special shots of his own. Like the pumped six off Noor Ahmad in the 12th over. Like the sliced six over the same region off a near yorker from Khaleel four overs later. Patidar finished with an unbeaten 48 off 19 balls.
After seeing David thump one six after another, Bhuvneshwar Kumar “wasn’t sure whether I should be happy or sad”. He had 200 reasons to be happy when he had Ayush Mhatre flapping a catch to mid-off for 1 by hitting an awkward, in-between length. It was his 200th wicket in the IPL; only Yuzvendra Chahal has more wickets than him in the league.
By the end of the powerplay, CSK were 77 for 3, with Sarfaraz Khan scoring 50 of those in 24 balls. Next ball, however, Krunal Pandya had Sarfaraz stumped. Prashant Veer then showed some spark during his 43 off 29 balls after going two matches without bowling a single ball. His shovelled four between deep midwicket and wide long-off off a Krunal dart showed why franchises were locked in a bidding war for Veer at the auction.
Overton also made some quick runs, but his cameo could not offset the damage caused by the sixes he had conceded to David.
Brief scores:
Royal Challengers Bengaluru 250 for 3 in 20 overs (Phil Salt 46, Virat Kohli 28, Devdutt Paddikal 50, Rajat Patidar 48*, Tim David 70*; Anshul Kamboj 1-52, Jamie Overton 1-42, Shivam Dube 1-30) beat Chennai Super Kings 207 in 19.4 overs (Sarfaraz Khan 50, Shivam Dube 18,Prashant Veer 43, Jamie Overton 37, Anshul Kamboj 19*; Jacob Duffy 2-58, Bhuvneshwar Kumar 3-41, Abhinandan Singh 2-30, Kunal Pandya 2-36, Suyash Sharma 1-21) by 43 runs
[Cricinfo]
Latest News
Shami sets up Lucknow Super Giants victory before Pant fifty takes them home
Mohammed Shami’s miserly 2 for 9 and Rishabh Pant’s uncharacteristic half-century helped Lucknow Super Giants [LSG] open their account in IPL 2026 as they beat Sunrisers Hyderabad [SRH] by five wickets in Hyderabad.
After Pant put SRH in, Shami dealt the early blows by dismissing Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head cheaply. He bowled three overs in the powerplay, and was done with his quota by the end of the ninth over.
Ishan Kishan and Liam Livingstone didn’t last long either, leaving SRH on 26 for 4 in the eighth over. Heinrich Klassen and Nitish Kumar Reddy rescued them by adding 116 in 63 balls – the highest fifth wicket partnership for SRH. The previous record, of 82, was set in the previous game by these two very batters. But Avesh Khan and co came back strongly in the death overs to restrict SRH to 156 for 9.
Come the chase, Aiden Markram’s 45 off 27 balls gave LSG the desired start. But the pitch wasn’t conducive to strokeplay, and LSG kept losing wickets at regular intervals. In the end, it came down to nine needed from the final over with Pant on strike. He had barely looked fluent until then but found two fours off the first two balls off Jaydev Unadkat to level the scores. Two dots later, Pant lofted one over mid-off to seal the result.
Bowling against his former team, Shami struck twice in his first seven balls. On the last ball of his opening over, he had Abhishek caught at short third with an offcutter. Then, with the first ball of his next, Shami outfoxed Head with another slower ball; Markram took a diving catch at mid-off on this occasion.
In the following over, Prince Yadav uprooted Kishan’s off stump with an inswinger to make it 11 for 3. Livingstone fell soon after. He tried to lap Digvesh Rathi but ended up deflecting the ball onto his shoulder. Pant, who was moving towards the leg side, dived to his right to complete a one-handed catch.
For the second game in a row, Klaasen and Reddy had to revive SRH’s innings. They started slowly and took SRH to 35 for 4 after ten overs – it was the fourth-lowest total by a team in the IPL at the halfway mark. SRH had hit only one four and one six until then, but after that, Klaasen and Reddy took the attack to the opposition. They plundered 79 runs in the next five overs.
Klaasen, who was dropped on 19 by Mukul Choudhary off M Siddharth, brought up his fifty off 33 balls. Reddy took only 30 to get to his. After 16 overs, SRH were 123 for 4, and would have been eyeing 170 – probably even more.
LSG’s bowlers brought them back into the contest with some excellent death bowling. Reddy holed out to sweeper cover off Siddharth in the 17th over. In the next, Klaasen went for a reverse lap off Avesh but ended up playing it too fine, and Pant dived across to take the catch. That sucked the momentum out of SRH’s innings; they could score only 33 runs in the last four overs while losing five wickets on the way.
Opening the bowling for SRH, Harsh Dubey started with a two-run over. But Markam and Mitchell Marsh picked up three fours off Reddy in the next. Markram also hit the first six of the innings when he pulled a slower ball from Unadkat over wide long-on. Marsh fell to Eshan Malinga for 14 off 12 balls, but Markram kept going. In the last over of the powerplay, he hit two fours and a six off Unadkat to take LSG to 53 for 1.
Pant was struggling at the other end but Markram ensured LSG remained ahead of the asking rate. He eventually fell to Shivang Kumar while trying to clear long-off.
Pant tried to break the shackles with back-to-back fours off Shivang in the 12th over, but Dubey had Ayush Badoni stumped. Nicholas Pooran came out at No. 5 and lasted just four balls. He swept Shivang fine, and set off for a single, without realising that Kishan had stopped the ball, and was thus run out.
Dubey tried to keep LSG in the contest with Samad’s wicket, and Harshal Patel bowled a four-run 19th over. But Pant stayed firm. Unadkat started the final over with a full delivery; Pant drilled it past him for four. Unadkat then bowled a slower one into the pitch, only for Pant to swat it down the ground for another boundary. Two dots later, Pant lofted one over mid-off to seal the game.
Brief scores:
Lucknow Super Giants 160 for 5 in 19.5 overs ( Aiden Markram 45, Mitchell Marsh 14, Rishabh Pant 68*, Ayush Badoni 12, Abdul Samad 16; Harsh Dubey 2-18, Eshan Malinga 1-30, Shivang Kumar 1-30) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 156 for 9 in 20 overs (Liam Livingstone 14, Heinrich Klaasen 62, Nitish Kumar Reddy 56; Mohammed Shami 2-09, Digvesh Rathi 1-46, Prince Yadav 2-34, Manimaran Siddharth 1-29, Avesh Khan 2-36 ) by five wickets
[Cricinfo]
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