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Jake Fraser-McGurk enjoys fine IPL debut as Delhi Capitals down Lucknow Super Giants
Jake Fraser-McGurk announced his arrival in the IPL with a 55 off 35 – with 3 fours and 5 sixes – as Delhi Capitals handed Lucknow Super Giants their first defeat in the IPL in a game where the latter posted a 160-plus total. The DC bowlers – led by Kuldeep Yadav – tripped up LSG’s top-order early before Ayush Badoni counter-attacked successfully. LSG’s 167/7 was the highest total for a team after losing their first seven wickets for under 100 in IPL history. But this big effort was for nothing in the end.
Delhi Capitals might be languishing lower in the points table, but Khaleel Ahmed finds himself joint-third on the bowling charts for the season. He was instrumental in setting up the team’s only other win this season – against CSK – and was once again at hand in rocking LSG’s top-order. Khaleel had the rub of the green as the umpire ruled in his favour for an LBW appeal after Quinton de Kock missed a full ball on the leg stump. The left-hander’s stay was cut short by umpire’s call. In his next over, he had Devdutt Padikkal out leg before too.
The match-up worked perfectly for DC as this was the fourth time de Kock fell to a left-arm pacer and third instance for Padikkal.
The left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav, lured Marcus Stoinis into a big, risky heave in his first over. The result was a leading edge to Ishant Sharma at backward point. LSG were left stunned just the next ball when he bowled a fabulous googly to an unsuspecting Nicholas Pooran and knocked back his stumps. KL Rahul, who had shown some intent early on, became Kuldeep’s third wicket in the 10th over. It needed DC to review but Rishabh Pant was convinced of an edge, and was rewarded for it.
LSG regressed further, slipping from 80 for 5 in 10 overs to 94 for 7 in 13 overs.
Ayush Badoni the 24-year-old resurrected LSG’s essay with an unbeaten 55 off 35. He had Arshad Khan for company in an eighth-wicket partnership worth 73 off the last seven overs. Badoni took on DC’s death-overs pacers Mukesh Kumar, Khaleel and Ishant Sharma as 39 runs came off the last three overs. Kuldeep meanwhile finished with figures of 3 for 20, including 10 dot balls.
David Warner’s dismissal in the fourth over did nothing to DC’s run-chase as their 22-year-old Jake Fraser-McGurk marked his IPL debut with an impressive show. He and Prithvi Shaw went on a boundary-hitting spree, collecting 15 off Arshad Khan and 17 off Krunal Pandya to take DC to 62/1 in 6 overs.
Ravi Bishnoi pushed DC back with a one-run seventh over that included the wicket of Shaw – caught at deep midwicket. This brought along a period of lull as DC managed just 13 runs in 4 overs until the halfway stage, without a boundary scored. Rishabh Pant then turned it around by going after Bishnoi in the 11th over, giving him the charge for a straight six and a four. The DC captain also went after Stoinis before Fraser-McGurk dwarfed the equation by hitting three successive sixes off Krunal – over deep midwicket, deep extra cover and long off.
In the space of five deliveries, Naveen Ul-Haq and Bishnoi dismissed both the batters and ended the chase-defining stand of 77 runs. But at this point, DC needed just 20 off 27 balls which Shai Hope and Tristan Stubbs saw through comfortably in 18.1 overs.
Brief Scores:
Lucknow Super Giants 167/7 in 20 overs (Ayush Badoni 55*, KL Rahul 39; Kuldeep Yadav 3-20, Khaleel Ahmed 2-41) lost to Delhi Capitals 170/4 in 18.1 overs (Jake Fraser-McGurk 55, Rishabh Pant 41; Ravi Bishnoi 2-25) by 6 wickets
(Cricbuzz)
The Ministry of Education has announced that all schools in the island will be closed on 13th and 14th November due to the Parliamentary Election.
South Korea’s president has apologised for a string of controversies surrounding his wife that included allegedly accepting a luxury Dior handbag and stock manipulation.
Addressing the nation on television, Yoon Suk Yeol said his wife, Kim Keon Hee, should have conducted herself better, but her portrayal had been excessively “demonised”, adding that some of the claims against her were “exaggerated”.
The president said he would set up an office to oversee the first lady’s official duties, but rejected a call for an investigation into her activities.
Yoon’s apology came as he tries to reverse a dip in his popularity among the South Korean public, linked to the controversies surrounding his wife.
Late in 2023, left-wing YouTube channel Voice of Seoul published a video that purportedly showed Kim accepting a 3m won ($2,200; £1,800) Dior bag from a pastor, who filmed the exchange in September 2022 using a camera concealed in his watch.
In February, Yoon said that the footage was leaked as a political maneuver and did not apologise.
South Korea’s Democratic Party, the opposition to Yoon’s conservative People Power Party, at the time labelled the president’s “shameless attitude” as “hopeless”.
The scandal also caused rifts within Yoon’s party, with one leader comparing Ms Kim with Marie Antoinette, the queen of France notorious for her extravagant lifestyle.
The opposition party has also long accused the first lady of being involved in stock price manipulation. Earlier in the year, Yoon vetoed a bill calling for his wife to be investigated over those allegations.
[BBC]
US President Joe Biden has vowed to ensure a “peaceful and orderly transition” to his Republican predecessor and now successor, Donald Trump.
“We accept the choice the country made,” the Democrat said, repeating that he believes “you can’t love your country only when you win”.
Biden also saluted Vice-President Kamala Harris as “a partner and a public servant” who ran an “inspiring” campaign after he dropped out.
His first public remarks after Tuesday’s election, in the White House’s Rose Garden, came as Democrats in Washington began seeking someone to blame for Harris’s large loss to Trump.
Much of the blame is being laid on Biden, with some saying that he should have dropped out of the race sooner and others that the 81-year-old should never have run for a second term at all.
The incumbent sought to balance a conciliatory tone with a message of reassurance, after a bleak campaign season where Harris frequently said that a Trump victory would threaten democracy and Trump often described the US as a “nation in decline” and a “failed nation”.
American democracy is “the greatest experiment in self-government in the world” and “the will of the people always prevails”, Biden said.
“We lost this battle,” he said. “The America of your dreams is calling for you to get back.”
In the comments before a crowd of White House staff and top members of his administration, Biden took on an issue that may have cost Harris the White House: the economy.
Voters in the swing states that decided the election listed the economy as a top issue driving them to the polls, and Trump in his rallies cast Biden as directly responsible for inflation spiking to a 40-year high in June 2022.
While Harris pointed to the steep recession when Trump was in office and significant improvements in inflation, she could not win over Trump voters who said they felt better about the economy during his first term.
But Biden said supporters should be proud of his “historic” term that had left behind “the strongest economy in the world” and “over $1tn worth of infrastructure work done”.
“I know people are still hurting, but things are changing rapidly,” he said.
Promising to work with Trump’s transition team without delay, Biden said it was time to “bring down the temperature” in the country.
“I also hope we can lay to rest the question about the integrity of the American electoral system,” he said, a a nod to the president-elect’s unproven allegations of fraud after his defeat in 2020, which led many to riot on 6 January 2021.
“It is honest, it is fair, it is transparent and it can be trusted, win or lose.”
Biden was the first incumbent to not compete for re-election since Lyndon Johnson in 1968.
His approval rating as president has been in negative territory for more than three years – since his administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. On top of that, a majority of voters, including most Democrats, have expressed concerns over his advanced age in a steady stream of polls.
But the Democrat launched his re-election bid in April 2023 with a promise to “finish the job”.
Typically, political parties do not follow a strenuous primary process when they control the White House and Biden did not have to face campaigns from serious rivals or debates to become the 2024 Democratic nominee. More than 14 million Americans voted for him during the Democratic primaries.
Then, in June 2024, Biden frequently lost his train of thought and meandered through several responses in a debate with Trump watched by millions on live television.
A month later, after a public push from Democratic heavyweights, he withdrew his candidacy and endorsed his vice-president. The election was a little more than three months away.
Democrats are trying to make sense of how they could win in 2020 and then lose four years later to the same opponent. Biden is not the only person being put at fault.
Some are saying Harris was a weak candidate who struggled with media appearances. Others say her campaign was heavy on celebrity involvement but light on policy substance.
One-time Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and others have suggested Harris erred in picking Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, an older progressive, as her running mate instead of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a more youthful, Jewish-American moderate.
Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who ran for president as a Democrat in 2016 and 2020, blasted the party itself, putting out a lengthy statement that accused it of abandoning working people.
“While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change,” he wrote. “And they’re right.”
But Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison responded on X that the accusation was “straight up BS”, saying Biden was “the most-pro worker President of my life time”.
Ritchie Torres, a moderate New York congressman, blamed “the far left, which has managed to alienate historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Jews from the Democratic Party with absurdities like ‘Defund the Police’ or ‘From the River to the Sea’ or ‘Latinx’”.
[BBC]
Schools closed on 13th and 14th November
Showers or thundershowers will occur in most parts of the island
Enthusiasm of voters and candidates at low ebb: Polls monitors
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