In another run fest in IPL 2024, Jake-Fraser McGurk’s 84 off 27 balls proved to be the difference as Delhi Capitals (DC) beat Mumbai Indians (MI) by ten runs in Delhi.
Apart from Fraser-McGurk, Shai Hope and Tristan Stubbs also played crucial knocks for DC as they posted 257 for 4 after being sent in. In reply, MI lost three wickets in the powerplay – the big ones of Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar Yadav – but Tilak Varma and Hardik Pandya kept their hopes alive.
Rasikh Salam however, turned the game by dismissing Hardik and Nehal Wadhera in the same over. While Tilak and Tim David fought till the end, MI eventually fell short.
The win took DC to fifth place on the points table with ten points from as many games. MI stay rooted to ninth with six points from nine matches.
As he has done often in his fledgling career so far, Fraser-McGurk did not waste time getting his eye in and his bat swinging. With a slightly open stance to left-arm seamer Luke Wood, he smashed the first three balls of the innings for 4, 4 and 6.
After taking 19 from the first over, he greeted Jasprit Bumrah in the same manner. Bumrah started his over with a slower ball only to be launched over long-on for a six. To make things worse, Bumrah had overstepped, and Fraser-McGurk drilled the free-hit past long-on for four. Fraser-McGurk ended the over with another boundary, making it Bumrah’s most expensive over (18 runs) of the season.
DC reached 50 in just 2.4 overs, the joint-fastest for a team in the IPL. In the next over, Fraser-McGurk got to his own fifty. Coming off just 15 balls, it was the joint fourth fastest in the tournament’s history.
Hardik brought himself on for the fifth over but there was no stopping Fraser-McGurk, who hammered the MI captain for two fours and two sixes to take DC to 89 for no loss after five overs.
For a moment, it looked like Fraser-McGurk might break the record for the fastest T20 hundred – he already has the fastest List A hundred to his name – but he holed out to deep midwicket against Piyush Chawla for a 27-ball 84.
Walking in at 114 for 1 in 7.3 overs, Hope ensured there was no dip in the momentum. Over the last one year or so, he has worked on his six-hitting skills and has demonstrated the same in ODIs but was unable to do so in T20s. On Saturday, though, he smashed five sixes in a 17-ball 41 to keep DC going in the middle overs.
After Hope fell, Stubbs took over and raced to 48 not out off 25 balls. In the 18th over, he used scoops, reverse-scoops and pulls to hit five fours and a six off Wood. Despite Bumrah dismissing Rishabh Pant in the 19th and conceding only six, DC had no trouble in crossing 250.
MI had a brisk start to their chase with Ishan Kishan hitting three successive fours off Khaleel Ahmed in the second over. But Khaleel made a good comeback and had Rohit Sharma caught at mid-off in his next over. From the other end, Mukesh Kumar had Kishan miscuing one to make it 45 for 2.
Suryakumar Yadav started with a flurry of boundaries, including two scooped sixes. But in the last over of the powerplay, he failed to pick a slower ball from Khaleel and fell for 26 off 13 balls.
MI had slowed down a bit after the powerplay but Hardik put them back on track. He hit Axar Patel for a six off the last ball of the eighth over and then smacked three fours and a six off Kuldeep Yadav in the ninth. Tilak, who was batting on a run-a-ball eight till then, also got into the act with a six and a four in Axar’s next over.
MI were still playing catch-up when Rasikh, after coming in as Impact Player, pegged them further back with a two-wicket over. Hardik ended up skying a back-of-the-hand slower ball to backward point and Nehal Wadhera guided a length delivery straight to Pant. That left MI needing 117 from seven overs with five wickets in hand.
Tilak and David kept the fight going. Tilak hit Kuldeep for two fours and two sixes in a 21-run 15th over to bring the equation down to 85 from five overs. But another excellent over by Rasikh, which went for only seven, made it 64 required from three.
David took on Mukesh and hit him for two sixes and a four to start the 18th over but was lbw off the next ball. Rasikh went for 16 in the penultimate over but dismissed Mohammad Nabi, which meant it was Tilak or bust for MI with 25 required from the final over.
Tilak went for a risky second run off the first ball of that over only to be caught short, and Mukesh held his nerve for the next five balls to seal the win for DC.
Brief scores: Delhi Capitals 257/4 in 20 overs (Jake Fraser-McGurk 84, Abhishek Porel 36, Shai Hope 41, Rishabh Pant 29, Tristan Stubbs 48*; Jasprit Bumrah 1-35, Luke Wood 1-68, Piyush Chawla 1-36, Mohammad Nabi 1-20) beat Mumbai Indians 247/9 in 20 overs (Ishan Kishan 20, Suriyakumar Yadav 26, Tilak Varma 63, Hardik Pandya 46, Tim David 37; Khaleel Ahmed 2-45, Mukesh Kumar 3-59, Rasikh Dar 3-34) by 10 runs
Protesters had called for the university to reject demands from the White House [BBC]
The Trump administration has said it is freezing more than $2bn (£1.5bn) in federal funds for Harvard University, hours after the elite college rejected a list of demands from the White House.
“Harvard’s statement today reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges,” the Department of Education said in a statement.
The White House sent a list of demands to Harvard last week which it said were designed to fight antisemitism on campus. They included changes to its governance, hiring practices and admissions procedures.
Harvard rejected the demands on Monday and said the White House was trying to “control” its community.
It is the first major US university to defy pressure from the Trump administration to change its policies. The sweeping changes demanded by the White House would have transformed its operations and ceded a large amount of control to the government.
President Trump has accused leading universities of failing to protect Jewish students when college campuses around the country were roiled by protests against the war in Gaza and US support for Israel last year.
In a letter to the Harvard community on Monday, its President Alan Garber said the White House had sent an “updated and expanded list of demands” on Friday alongside a warning that the university “must comply” in order to maintain its “financial relationship” with the government.
“We have informed the administration through our legal counsel that we will not accept their proposed agreement,” he wrote. “The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”
Mr Garber added that the university did not “take lightly” its obligation to fight antisemitism, but said the government was overreaching.
“Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard,” he said.
Shortly after his letter was sent, the education department said it was freezing $2.2bn in grants and $60m in contracts to Harvard immediately.
“The disruption of learning that has plagued campuses in recent years is unacceptable,” it said.
“The harassment of Jewish students is intolerable. It is time for elite universities to take the problem seriously and commit to meaningful change if they wish to continue receiving taxpayer support,” the statement added.
The White House said in its own letter on Friday that Harvard had “in recent years failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment”.
The letter included 10 categories for proposed changes that the White House said were needed in order for Harvard to maintain its “financial relationship with the federal government”.
Some of the changes included: reporting students to the federal government who are “hostile” to American values; ensuring each academic department is “viewpoint diverse”; and hiring an external government-approved party to audit programs and departments “that most fuel antisemitic harassment”.
The letter orders the university to take disciplinary action for “violations” that happened during protests on campus over the past two years. It also demands an end the university’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies and programmes.
Since taking office, President Trump has put pressure on universities to tackle antisemitism and end diversity practices.
In December 2023, the president’s of top US universities were questioned in a tense congressional hearing in which they were accused of failing to protect Jewish students following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war two months earlier.
Claudine Gay, who was then president of Harvard, later apologised after telling the hearing that calls for the killing of Jews were abhorrent, but it would depend on the context whether such comments would constitute a violation of Harvard’s code of conduct.
That comment, as well as allegations of plagiarism, led her to resign from the post a month later.
In March, the Trump administration said it was reviewing roughly $256m in federal contracts and grants at Harvard, and an additional $8.7bn in multi-year grant commitments.
Harvard professors filed a lawsuit in response, alleging the government was unlawfully attacking freedom of speech and academic freedom.
The White House had previously pulled $400m in federal funding from Columbia University and accused it of failing to fight antisemitism and protect Jewish students on its campus.
When the $400m was pulled, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said: “Universities must comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding”.
Shortly after, Columbia agreed to several of the administration’s demands, drawing criticism from some students and faculty.
Earlier on Monday, a lawyer for an organiser of pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University said her client had been arrested by immigration officials as he attended an interview as part of his application for US citizenship.
Mohsen Mahdawi, a green card holder who is due to graduate next month, was detained on Monday in Colchester, Vermont.
Others who took part in campus protests against the war, including Columbia University’s Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts University’s Rumeysa Ozturk, have been detained in recent weeks.
MS Dhoni and Shivam Dube bump fists in the middle [BCCI]
Chennai Super Kings (CSK) were staring at the prospect of losing a sixth game in a row when MS Dhoni joined Shivam Dube with five overs left in the chase. But Dhoni won the battle against the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) seamers with an 11-ball 26 while Dube made 43 to give them their second win in seven outings.
LSG captain Rishabh Pant felt right after the game that LSG were “10-15 runs short” in their first-innings effort. Despite Pant’s own 49-ball 63, his first half-century in LSG colours, they scored only 166 for 7 in 20 overs, their lowest total of the season. They were pegged back by Ravindra Jadeja’s two wickets and kept in check by Noor Ahmed’s miserly four overs that went for only 13 runs.
After CSK’s opening partnership put them on course early, LSG dragged the game back with their spinners. Digvesh Rathi, Ravi Bishnoi and part-time offspinner Aiden Markram produced combined figures of 11-0-80-4, but a 19-run over from Shardul Thakur in the penultimate over ended LSG’s hopes.
When Dhoni walked in at the 15th over, Dube had made only 17 in his first 20 balls. Dube had failed to boss the spinners like his usual self and the dismissals of Vijay Shankar and Jadeja had only added to the pressure.
But Dhoni enjoys pace, coming into the game with a strike-rate of 222 against seamers since IPL 2024, and LSG supplied him with just that. Despite one over of Bishnoi left, LSG went for Avesh Khan and Shardul Thakur, and their wide yorker plan to both batters ended up being predictable.
Dhoni edged a couple of fours down to deep third but showed his power by punching a boundary through the covers, flicking a full toss over midwicket and dragging a one-handed six over deep square leg.
He also ran his ones and twos, sometimes gingerly, with Dube and took the pressure off him. When Shardul bowled two full tosses at the start of the 19th over, Dube smacked him for four and a no-ball six.
Dhoni picked up his first IPL player-of-the-match award since 2019 while Dube, soon after hitting the winning runs, said he was proud of taking the game deep. Their partnership of 57 came in only 28 balls.
Shaik Rasheed’s skills were never in doubt. He is a former Under-19 World Cup-winning vice-captain, has a Syed Mushtaq Ali century and a double ton in first-class cricket. It’s for those reasons CSK have kept a close eye on him since IPL 2023.
With Devon Conway not among the runs, CSK gave Rasheed an IPL debut and he took strike to start the chase. By the second over, he had pumped three fours off Akash Deep, with one flick over midwicket described on the broadcast as “Virat Kohli-like.”
His 19-ball 27 with six fours helped CSK reach fifty in only 4.2 overs, and alongside Rachin Ravindra’s 22-ball 37, gave them a rare successful opening stand. Those runs proved crucial as a collapse against spin soon followed.
With a strike-rate of 80 and a high score of 21 this season, Pant needed to get going. He walked-in in the fourth over with Markram and Nicholas Pooran out to Khaleel Ahmed and Anshul Kamboj cheaply.
He started on a positive note, improvising a reverse lap over third man early for six along with a handful of contorted pulls and cuts. But his strike-rate of 165 plummeted to 103 when CSK’s spinners applied the squeeze. Pant saw wickets fall from the other end, and ended up playing ten dots in 15 balls against Noor, scoring only six runs. His strike rate of 40 against the purple-cap holder ended up being the second worst for any batter against a bowler in IPL (minimum15 balls).
However, from 40 in 39 balls, Pant found his touch against the pace-on options of Matheesha Pathirana and Khaleel to turn his innings around. He couldn’t stay till the end, though, and the CSK spinners’ effort ensured LSG could make only 166 on a day where their second-highest individual score was Mitchell Marsh’s 30.
Brief scores: Chennai Super Kings 168 for 5 in 19.3 overs (Shaik Rasheed 27, Rachin Ravindra 37, Shivam Dube 43*, Mahendra Singh Dhoni 26*; Digvesh Rathi 1-23, Avesh Khan 1-32, Ravi Bishnoi 2-18, Aiden Markram 1-25) beatLucknow Super Giants 166 for 7 in 20 overs (Mitchell Marsh 30, Rishabh Pant 63, Ayush Badoni 22, Abdul Samad 20; Khaleel Ahmed 1-38, Anshul Kamboj 1-20, Ravindra Jadeja 2-24, Matheesha Pathirana 2-45) by five wickets
Prime Minister Dr Harini Amarasuriya in her message for the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, called upon all Sri Lankans to commit themselves to move forward with dedication, trust, and resilience to achieve success and progress in the coming year.
The full text of the prime minister’s message
“Let us step into the New Year with renewed hope and a vision, as we continue to work together toward “a prosperous country and a beautiful life.”
I extend my heartfelt wishes to the Sinhala and Tamil people of Sri Lanka, who celebrate the New Year in unity and generosity.
This New Year dawns at a moment when a new change is essential in every aspect of our lives. This traditional festivity reminds us to bring about positive change that is deep rooted in our culture and values, and move forward together in unity.
In recent years, the economic crisis made even the thought of celebrating the New Year a painful experience for many. However, the courageous efforts of the people to break free from a cycle of corruption and fraud, has led the path for the emergence of a new beginning.
Thus, the 2025 New Year marks a significant turning point. It is a year where communities from the North, South, East, and West unite and continue to work together under democratic principles to build a better future. In the upcoming month of May, the people’s aspirations will once again bear fruit.
At this moment when a new chapter begins with the New Year, I urge every citizen to act with respect, peace, and compassion in community. Let us commit ourselves to move forward with dedication, trust, and resilience to achieve success and progress in the coming year.
To all Sri Lankans celebrating Sinhala and Tamil New Year, I wish the nation is blessed with the strength, unity, and new energy needed for meaningful transformation and a prosperous tomorrow.
Wishing you all a very Happy New Year!”
