Rishabh Pant brought up an emotional sixth Test century, Shubman Gill a serene fifth, and the Indian bowlers and fielders responded well to demanding conditions by taking four second-innings wicket on day three in Chennai. Bangladesh were 357 adrift of the 515 target set them by an aggressive declaration with two-and-a-half days left in the Test.
With the pitch not yet breaking up and the average seam movement dying down from 1.3 degrees on day one to 0.4 degrees on day three, these were the best batting conditions of the match. Despite India’s attacking approach to set up the declaration, they only played 16 false shots in 41 overs on day three, while scoring 206 runs. The conditions remained flat when Bangladesh batted, but a marathon spell from Ravichandran Ashwin maintained India’s ascendency in the match. The bowlers had the fielders to thank for three low catches of varying difficulty.
Given the conditions, Gill and Pant, both aggressive batters given to counterattacking, acknowledged that only they could get themselves out, and put their heads down for big knocks. They kept respecting good balls, and once in they jumped out of the crease to hit sixes. Gill hit Mehidy Hasan Miraz, who bowled 25 out of India’s 64 second-innings overs, for four of them to reach 28 sixes in his 26th Test. Pant fancied the left-arm spin of Shakib Al Hasan and hit four sixes of his own to go up to 59, the seventh-highest for India, in just 34 Tests. India have now hit 85 sixes in 2024, which leaves them only five short of breaking the record for most sixes by a team in a calendar year.
What the duo did outside the sixes was more impressive. Unlike Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rohit Sharma, who on the second evening just tried to impose themselves on the bowling, these two began the day respecting the bowling and they were content to defend for a while without worrying about edges and close-in fielders. Only in the seventh over of the day did someone try to force the issue, and Gill did that beautifully with the two sixes over wide long-on.
Pant, extra conscious to not give it away after a soft dismissal in the first innings, took even more time before he went manufacturing shots – none better than the ramp-sweep off Hasan Mahmud for a six over fine leg ten minutes before lunch. Gill joined in the acceleration before lunch, suggesting the declaration might come sooner rather than later. With that push for quicker runs came a skier from Pant seven minutes before the break, but captain Najmul Hossain Shanto put it down. Pant still hit two fours in the final over before the break, throwing down the gauntlet for the race to the hundred.
Post lunch, Pant brought out his trademark flick behind square both off the quicks and the spinners to get to his hundred in just 118 balls. Gill went there more calmly, in 161 balls, and KL Rahul played a few classy inside-out drives before the declaration left Bangladesh an hour to bat till tea.
Zakir Hasan came out full of intent, driving both off the front and the back foot and also dismissing Mohammed Siraj for a flicked six. With the ball not doing much, he and Shadman Islam stayed on the lookout for runs, punishing every error in length.
Once Ashwin came on, though, he started to create some mischief, hitting the sticker of the bat here, taking the inside edge there. Post tea, he and Jasprit Bumrah created three tight overs. In the fourth, Zakar played an ambitious drive to a ball not nearly full enough, and Jaiswal ended his innings with a sensational catch low to his left and behind him at gully.
The conditions made Ashwin work hard for his wickets. He was even taken for four sixes; the most he has ever conceded in an innings is five. He kept plugging away, though, often slowing his pace down to draw assistance from the surface. His first wicket didn’t come as he would have envisaged as Shadman went back looking to play a length ball behind square. It wasn’t short enough, and it took his leading edge for a low catch for Gill at short midwicket.
Ashwin then produced a beauty to get rid of Mominul Haque, who never looked at home. The drift made him play the line, and the turn was just enough to miss the edge but not the off stump. Mushfiqur Rahim was a cat on a hit tin roof, slog-sweeping Ashwin for a six before hitting one low to Rahul at mid-on. Shakib Al Hasan was even less settled, but was rescued by bad light that ended the play early. Amid all this, captain Najmul batted calmly yet quickly to end the day batting on 51 off 60.
Brief scores:
Bangladesh 149 and 158 for 4 (Shanto 51*, Ashwin 3-63) need 357 runs to beat India 376 and 287 for 4 dec. (Gill 119*, Pant 109)
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!”
