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Gujarat Titans go No.1 after Rabada and Holder rout Sunrisers Hyderabad
Kagiso Rabada and Mohommed Siraj could have been wearing their Test whites. By the end of the powerplay, they had bowled three overs each, and Sunrisers Hyderabad were reduced to 34 for 4. Somehow, they had outdone the Gujarat Titans batting line-up from the first innings – they had been reduced to 34 for 2 themselves. Wickets in hand allowed B Sai Sudarsan (61 off 44) and Washington Sundar (50 off 33) to mount a comeback for GT. On the other hand, SRH let a tricky chase of 168 slip from their grasp, folding for 86 in 14.5 overs.
At the toss, GT captain Shubman Gill said that the pitch in Ahmedabad looked like “a better wicket than we have had in the past couple of matches.” He was dismissed in the third over, off a rare mistimed swipe across the line. He had misjudged a pitch that turned out to be one of this IPL’s most treacherous ones: deliveries stuck in the surface, the new ball jagged both ways, and scoring options were hard to find square of the wicket.
An endless battery of tall GT fast bowlers – rounded out by Jason Holder and Impact Player Prasidh Krishna in the middle overs – kept striking in the chase. At the end of it, GT rose to the top of the table with 16 points.
Pat Cummins unlocked the secret to bowling on this surface early: he pushed it in on a hard length, and kept swinging the new ball away from both Sudharsan and Gill. But the first two wickets for SRH came from elsewhere. Praful Hinge found himself back in the SRH side, in place of Harsh Dubey to give them an extra pace option.
Hinge mimicked the Cummins line-and-length early on, and tempted Gill into a misjudged on-drive. In the final over of the powerplay, Jos Buttler realised he could not go big in the ‘V’, so he tried to scoop Hinge behind the wicket instead. All he managed was an edge to the keeper.
Hinge’s twin strikes consigned GT to 34 for 2, their lowest powerplay score this season.
If ever there was a pitch suited to Sudharsan’s brand of T20 batting, it was this. He kept pouncing on the deliveries that erroneously landed in the slot, and pushed the others around to turn over the strike. Nishant Sindhu, who made 22 off 14, kept him company at the other end through the middle overs. Sindhu stayed deep in his crease and played drives and cuts, both batters biding their time.
Sensing a breakthrough, Cummins brought himself back into the attack in the 10th over to bowl his third. He rifled in a delivery outside off, full but rearing off the pitch at Sindhu. He could only mistime a lofted drive to long-off.
Cummins ended with figures of 1 for 20 in the 16th. Just an over later, Sai Sudharsan – who had brought up his sixth half-century of the season – opted for another scoop off Sakib Hussain. The full delivery took off the bottom of his bat, and Hinge gobbled it up at short third.
Washington starred in the final overs of the GT innings. He jumped on top of deliveries too high for most others to cut, and sent them off to the ropes by rolling his wrists over them late. He saved his best shots for the end of the 19th over, off Eshan Malinga, who had a rare off-day and gave away 46 runs. He fell down on successive deliveries, first scooping a yorker down over short fine, then attacking a full toss by rolling his wrists, once more, for a shovel over deep square leg.
At the midway mark, GT’s total was the Schrodinger’s par score – neither quite par but also just, with Sudharsan hesitating to call it enough for their bowlers between innings. Siraj and Rabada then bowled through the powerplay for the fifth match in a row. Nineteen balls into the innings, they had dismissed Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan.
Rabada, in particular, kept hitting the hard length close to 150kph, slanting deliveries away from the left-handers to have Kishan driving at one away from his body, Abhishek chopping one into his stumps, and No. 4 R Smaran mistiming one to Gill in covers. He finished his spell in one go, returning 3 for 28.
Holder’s entry to the GT side has given them another tall, accurate bowler to go to in the middle overs. In their previous game, against Rajasthan Royals, he had plucked out the final three wickets in the space of five balls. Here, he took 3 for 20 as he mopped up SRH’s lower order.
The wicket had worn down as the evening went on, so Holder resorted to slower balls in the back-half of the innings. First, he effectively finished the contest by taking out Heinrich Klaasen, who swiped at a ball lacking in pace over his head, to keeper Buttler running to his left. Nitish Kumar Reddy was his next victim, courtesy an edge from the extra bounce Holder kept extracting from the surface, while Shivang Kumar was the final batter to fall off a misadventurous scoop.
Our final tall bowler of the day – in the cohort of Cummins, Holder, Rabada and Siraj – also had the highest release point of all: Prasidh Krishna. He went back-of-a-length in his spell to finish with figures of 2 for 23 of his own.
At the end of a fast-bowling buffet, GT marched to their biggest victory in the IPL. Their W in the last match – a 77-run win against RR – had been their previous best. They finished this night on top of the table, suddenly the team to beat this season.
Brief scores:
Gujarat Titans 168 for 5 in 20 overs (Sai Sudharsan 61, Nishant Sindhu 22, Washington Sundar 50, Jason Holder 11*; Pat Cummins 1-20, Praful Hinge 2-17, Sakib Hussain 2-37) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 86 in 14.5 overs (Ishan Kishan 11, Heinrich Klassen 14, Salil Arora 16, Pat Cummins 19; Mohammed Siraj 1-11, Jason Holder 3-20, Kagiso Rabada 3-28, Prasidh Krishna 2-23, Rashid Khan 1-03) by 82 runs
[Cricinfo]
The UK has said it will contribute drones, fighter jets and a warship to a joint mission aimed at safeguarding shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
Defence minister John Healey announced the package at a virtual summit of defence ministers on Tuesday. It includes autonomous systems to detect and clear naval mines, drone boats and Typhoon jets for air patrols.
More than 40 other nations are involved in the mission, which Healey said would begin when conditions allow.
For months Iran has been controlling the Strait of Hormuz – one of the world’s busiest oil shipping channels – in retaliation for US and Israeli attacks.
The US, for its part, has been enforcing a blockade of Iranian ports to exert pressure on Tehran to agree to its terms – a move that has infuriated Iran.
Some 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas uses the crucial waterway, whose blockage has sent prices soaring globally.
A ceasefire has been in place between the US and Iran since April, but US President Donald Trump has said it is on “massive life support”.
Both sides have accused the other of launching attacks in the strait.
There is already more than 1,000 British personnel deployed in the region as part of existing defensive operations, including counter-drone teams and fast jet squadrons, the ministry said.
The Ministry of Defence said the multinational mission – which was announced last month by the UK and France – is strictly defensive and aimed at restoring confidence for commercial shipping along the Strait of Hormuz.
It said the contribution is backed by £115m new funding for mine-hunting drones and counter-drone systems.
“With our allies, this multinational mission will be defensive, independent, and credible,” Healey said in a statement.
Under the plan, HMS Dragon – the air defence destroyer that is already on its way to the Middle East – will also “be ready for any mission” to secure the strait, the MoD said.
It added that another British ship, the RFA Lyme Bay, continues to be upgraded by with new equipment, if required for operations in the strait.
The announcement comes as Healey offered his support to Sir Keir Starmer, as dozens of Labour MPs called on the prime minister to resign.
[BBC]
Jess Phillips, a high-profile Labour minister, has quit in protest as Prime Minister Keir Starmer refuses to heed growing calls to resign, according to Sky News. Hours earlier, Miatta Fahnbulleh, a junior minister, was the first politician to leave government over the issue.
Starmer has promised to “get on with governing”, defying calls from about 80 MPs who are urging Starmer to leave imminently or set out a timetable to do so after his Labour Party suffered heavy losses in local elections.
As Labour was hammered, the hard-right Reform UK party surged in the local elections.
The UK’s fourth prime minister in five years, Starmer also faces pressure over the Labour Party’s vetting process to approve Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the United States, given Mandelson’s relationship with the billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
[Aljazeera]
Bangladesh’s bowlers combined to trounce Pakistan by 104 runs in the first Test in Dhaka. Nahid Rana struck decisive blows while Taskin Ahmed, Mehidy Hasan Miraz and Taijul Islam were among the wickets as the home team put together a rare triumph on the fifth day. This is now Bangladesh’s third consecutive win against Pakistan, after they won the 2024 series by 2-0 margin.
Rana removed Shan Masood, Saud Shakeel and Mohammad Rizwan in a fiery spell, before he took down Noman Ali and Shaheen Shah Afridi to finish with figures of 5 for 40 from his 9.5 overs. Taskin and Taijul took two wickets each while Mehidy, who took a five-for in the first innings, took one wicket.
For most of their fourth innings, Pakistan were kept together by debutant Abdullah Fazal. He initially overcame Pakistan’s early loss of Imam-ul-Haq before lunch, when he struck Mehidy for consecutive fours just after lunch. Rana then went for three fours in a row; Fazal edged twice through the slips before driving hard down the ground.
Mehidy brought back Bangladesh immediately when he bowled Azan Awais next over. The opener was undone by a delivery that held its line before sliding into the stumps. Awais, who made a century in the first innings, fell for 15 this time.
When Rana removed Masood soon after, Pakistan were 68 for three staring at trouble. Fazal reached his half-century with an upper-cut off Ebadot Hossain. He is now the sixth Pakistan batter to get fifties in both innings of his debut Test.
Fazal however fell in the first over after tea when Taijul got the ball to spin sharply into the left-hander’s defensive prod, with the TV umpire confirming the dismissal through a review. Fazal made 66 off 113 balls, with eleven fours.
Soon after, Taskin had Salman Ali Agha caught at second slip. Shadman Islam however had to walk off after the catch hit his chest, although he held on to the chance.
Earlier in the day, the home side jumped into action in the fifth morning, adding 88 runs in 20 overs. They lost six wickets in the process, but Bangladesh made a laudable approach to keep the game alive. The morning however began with Hasan Ali removing Mushfiqur Rahim, caught at mid-off for 22.
Hasan then took an excellent catch at the fine-leg boundary after Litton Das top edged a hook off Shaheen Afridi after making eleven runs. Mehidy Hasan Miraz struck couple of fours and a six before Noman removed him for 24. It was his 100th wicket.
Shanto fell to Noman too, lbw for 87 while trying to play a reverse sweep. Shanto missed out on becoming only the fourth batter, after Sunil Gavaskar, Ricky Ponting and David Warner, to score twin hundreds in a Test on three occasions.
Brief scores:
Bangladesh 413 [Monimul Haque 91, Najmul Hossain Shanto 101, Mushfiqur Rahim 71; Shaheen Shah Afrid 3-113, Mohammad Abbas 5-92] and 240 for 9 dec [Mominul Haque 56, Najmul Hossain Shanto 87; Hasan Ali 3-52, Noman Ali 3-76] beatPakistan 386 [Azan Awais 103, Abdullah Fazal 60, Salman Agha 58, mohammad Rizwan 59; Mehidy Hasan Miraz 5-102] and 163 [Abdullah Fazal 66, Salman Agha 26; Nahid Rana 5-40] by 104 runs
[Cricinfo]
Gujarat Titans go No.1 after Rabada and Holder rout Sunrisers Hyderabad
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