Latest News
Luus and Wolvaardt lead South Africa’s fightback after Rana’s eight-for
For the second consecutive day, South Africa’s batters showed great grit to stay in the game after being put on the back foot by the India bowlers in the one-off women’s Test in Chennai. If Sune Luus and Marizanne Kapp fought hard on the second day after India declared at 603 for 6, Luus was at it again on Sunday, in the company of Laura Wolvaardt this time, which helped South Africa cut down the deficit to 105 runs after they were bowled out for 266 in the first innings.
At stumps on the third day, South Africa were 232 for 2 in their second innings, with Luus scoring her first Test hundred and Wolvaardt remaining unbeaten on 93. South Africa will hope for more of the same on the fourth and final day to push the game to a draw.
It was an eventful opening session for India on a hazy morning where Sneh Rana’s sensational bowling on a pitch offering more turn fetched her five wickets – to go with three from Saturday – to give her figures of 8 for 77. South Africa lost six wickets for 30 runs after starting the day on 236 for 4.
Rana got the first breakthrough in her third over, the fifth of the day, when she dismissed a well-set Kapp for 74 with an almost unplayable delivery. Kapp was done in by the extra bounce as the ball, after pitching on off and middle, popped up to beat her outside edge and take the top of off stump. This triggered a collapse as three balls later, Rana removed Sinalo Jafta, who inside-edged one to Shubha Satheesh at short leg.
Three overs later, Deepti Sharma picked up her second wicket. This time the ball stayed low when debutant Annerie Dercksen missed with her prod and was hit on her back pad. South Africa took the review but it was in vain. In the following over, Rana took her sixth when Nadine de Klerk perished whipping towards square leg where Rajeshwari Gayakwad dived in front to complete the catch. No. 7 and No. 8 came soon after as Rana finished off the innings.
Rana became only the second Indian woman to pick up eight wickets in an innings in Test cricket after Neetu David, now India’s chair of selectors, who took 8 for 53 in a two run loss against England in Jamshedpur in 1995.
India enforced the follow-on with South Africa 337 runs behind. They then lost Anneke Bosch early to low bounce when she was trapped in front by Deepti in the first over. But Wolvaardt nailed her cover drives and looked assured in her approach.
At lunch, South Africa were 29 for 1. India struggled from that point, going wicketless for close to 66 overs across the second and third sessions.
In this period, Luus and Wolvaardt shared a mammoth 190-run partnership for the second wicket to provide South Africa hope of a draw. It was South Africa’s highest partnership for any wicket in women’s Tests.
South Africa came out in the afternoon session determined to play the long game and they succeeded, scoring 95 runs in 34 overs to take tea at 124 for 1. Luus, who made 65 off 164 balls in the first innings, carried forward that form and temperament, moving to 64 off 121 balls at the end of the second session.
Having been trapped lbw to one that kept low from Rana in the first innings, Wolvaardt used the depth of the crease more in the second dig. She pulled short deliveries through square leg and drove the fuller ones to long-on.
India toiled hard to break the stand with Harmanpreet Kaur trying as many as seven bowlers, including herself. But they weren’t disciplined with their lengths and speeds. Perhaps not being used to such a long time in the middle affected them. Deepti also dropped two catches – Kapp benefiting both times – in the last two overs of the day.
Wolvaardt and Luus, though, reaped the rewards of patience on a pitch that got slower after the first session.
Consuming more than 200 balls meant Luus and Wolvaardt also had gotten used to the low bounce, with only the odd delivery popping up in the last two sessions of the day. Luus spent 234 minutes at the crease, hitting 18 fours. When she reached her half-century, Luus brought out the rocking-baby-cradle celebration, a gesture for the team’s strength and conditioning coach Zane Webster, who is an expectant father. She scored her maiden century in the final session, and became only the second South African to score a hundred in India in women’s Tests.
The huge stand was finally broken by Harmanpreet when she cleaned up Luus in the 74th over. The low bounce came to her aid as Luus went back to pull but missed.
With Kapp at the other end, Wolvaardt marched on to finish unbeaten. That has raised hopes of a South African lead on the last day, a scenario that looked near-impossible at the start of Sunday.
For India, Jemimah Rodrigues was off the field for a majority of the last two sessions because of cramps.
Brief scores:
South Africa Women 232 for 2 in 85 overs (Sunee Luus 109, Laura Wolvaardt 93*, Harmanpreet Kaur 1-24, Deepti Sharm 1-56) and 266 in 84.3 overs (Laura Wolvaardt 20, Anneke Bosch 39, Marizanne Kapp 74, Sune Luus 65, Nadine de Klerk 39; Sneh Rana 8-77, Deepti Sharma 2-47) trail India Women 603 for 6 dec in 115.1 overs (Shafali Verma 205, Smriti Mandhana 149, Jemimah Rodrigues 55, Richa Ghosh 86, Harmanpreet Kaur 69; Delmi Tucker 2-141) by 105 runs
Magnitude 7.7 and 6.4 earthquakes have struck Myanmar, killing at least three in Thailand’s capital Bangkok and trapping dozens others after an under construction building collapsed.
The first tremor hit 16km (10 miles) northwest of the city of Sagaing at a depth of 10km (6 miles) at about 12:50pm (06:20 GMT) on Friday, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.
Myanmar’s ruling military declared a state of emergency in six regions and states. “The state will make inquiries on the situation quickly and conduct rescue operations along with providing humanitarian aid,” it said on the Telegram messaging app.
A major hospital in Naypyidaw was declared a “mass casualty area”, an official at the facility told AFP news agency. Rows of wounded were treated outside the emergency department of the 1,000-bed general hospital, some writhing in pain, others lying still as relatives sought to comfort them.
According to two witnesses from the town of Taungnoo in Bago region who spoke to Reuters news agency, at least three people died after a mosque partially collapsed. “We were saying prayers when the shaking started … Three died on the spot,” one of them said.
Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng reporting from Naypyidaw said he was outside Myanmar’s Defence Services Museum when the earthquake hit, right after interviewing a government spokesman. “We’d just stepped outside to say goodbye when things started shaking,” Cheng said, adding he and others sought shelter under a doorway as large roofing and side panels crashed down.
The tremors began gently but quickly intensified, causing concrete panels to break off the building, Cheng noted. “I’ve been in earthquakes in this region before, and I’ve never felt anything as strong as that,” he said. “We have felt a considerable number of aftershocks. It put everybody here on edge.”
Social media posts from Mandalay, Myanmar’s ancient royal capital that is at the centre of its Buddhist heartland, showed collapsed buildings and debris strewn across streets of the city.
A witness in the city Htet Naing Oo told Reuters that a tea shop had collapsed with several people trapped inside. “We couldn’t go in,” she said. “The situation is very bad.”
Marie Manrique, programme coordinator for the International Federation of the Red Cross said to reporters in Geneva, via video link from Yangon that the organisation anticipates the impact to be “quite large”.
“Public infrastructure has been damaged including roads, bridges and public buildings. We currently have concerns for large scale dams that people are watching to see the conditions of them”, she said.
Skyscraper collapses in Bangkok
In neighbouring Thailand’s capital Bangkok, at least three people were killed when a 30-storey under-construction tower collapsed, Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai announced. He added that 81 people were trapped under the rubble of the building.
Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan who was in the city when the earthquakes struck, said the entire public transport system has been shuttered for safety reasons.
“People are out on the streets here. None of the trains are moving,” he reported. “Traffic is absolutely gridlocked. The buildings have been shuttered in the centre of the city.”
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra announced a state of emergency in her country. Meanwhile, Bangkok has been declared a disaster area, the capital’s city hall said on Friday.
Urban rail systems in Bangkok were temporarily closed but expected to resume services on Saturday.
The earthquakes were also felt in the Yunnan and Sichuan provinces in China, causing injuries and damage to houses in the city of Ruili on the border with northern Myanmar, according to Chinese media reports.
Videos that one outlet said it had received from a person in Ruili showed building debris littering a street and a person being wheeled on a stretcher towards an ambulance.
Cambodia, Bangladesh and India also reported tremors.
Previous quakes in Myanmar
Earthquakes are relatively common in Myanmar, where six strong quakes of 7.0 magnitude or higher struck between 1930 and 1956 near the Sagaing Fault, which runs north to south through the centre of the country, according to the USGS.
A powerful 6.8-magnitude earthquake in the ancient capital Bagan in central Myanmar killed three people in 2016, also toppling spires and crumbling temple walls at the tourist destination.
The impoverished Southeast Asian nation has a strained medical system, especially in its rural states.
Moreover, Al Jazeera’s Cheng said it was important to remember that Myanmar was a country currently in the grips of a bitter civil war.
“A lot of the people have moved from the countryside into the cities to try and escape,” he noted. “That has meant it is densely overcrowded and the building standards are not particularly strong.”
[Aljazeera]
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that Canada’s old relationship with the United States, “based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation, is over”.
Speaking to reporters in Ottawa after a cabinet meeting, Carney said Canadians must “fundamentally re-imagine our economy” in the face of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
He said Canada would respond with retaliatory tariffs that will have “maximum impact” on the US.
Trump announced on Wednesday he would target imported vehicles and vehicle parts with a 25% tax, stating: “This is permanent.”
Carney, the Liberal Party leader, called the original Canada-US Automotive Products Agreement signed in 1965 the most important deal in his lifetime. “That’s finished with these tariffs,” he said in French.
He continued that Canada can sustain an auto industry with the US tariffs provided the government and business community work to “re-imagine” and “retool” the industry.
Canada needs to build an economy Canadians can control, he said, and that would include rethinking it’s trade relationship with other partners. It remains to be seen whether Canadians can have a strong trading relationship with the United States going forward, he added.
Carney has switched his campaign plans ahead of next month’s general election to confront the latest import duties.
The US has already partially imposed a blanket 25% tariff on Canadian goods, along with a 25% duty on all Aluminum and steel imports. Canada has so far retaliated with about C$60bn ($42bn; £32bn) of tariffs on US goods.
The new car tariffs will come into effect on 2 April, with charges on businesses importing vehicles starting the next day, the White House said. Taxes on parts are set to start in May or later.
Early on Thursday morning, Trump warned Canada and the EU against joining forces versus the US in the trade war.
“If the European Union works with Canada in order to do economic harm to the USA, large scale Tariffs, far larger than currently planned, will be placed on them both,” he posted on his Truth Social platform.
Carney met his ministers in Ottawa on Thursday morning to “discuss trade options”. He had originally been scheduled to campaign in Quebec.
He said during his press conference that President Trump had reached out to him last night to schedule a call, and that it would take place in the “next day or two”.
If it takes place, this would be the first call between the pair.
Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservatives, the main opposition party, called the tariffs “unjustified and unprovoked”.
The NDP, a left-wing party that previously helped prop up the minority Liberal government of ex-PM Justin Trudeau, also switched its campaign plans on Thursday.
Jagmeet Singh, the NDP leader, spent the day meeting union leaders and car workers in Windsor, Ontario, an auto manufacturing hub across from Detroit, Michigan.
He said the US tariffs are a “betrayal” against a close ally, saying that “Donald Trump has started an illegal trade war with Canada” for “absolutely no reason”.
He said any auto company that moves their operations out of Canada because of the tariffs should be blocked from selling cars in the country.
Canadians go to the polls on 28 April.
The US imported about eight million cars last year – accounting for about $240bn in trade and roughly half of overall sales.
Before the match, many expected Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) to post the first 300-plus total in the IPL. There were reasons to speculate that. SRH had posted 286 for 6 in their previous game, also in Hyderabad, and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) were without at least two of their first-choice bowlers.
Forget 300, SRH could not even score 200. They managed only 190 for 9 with Shardul Thakur picking up 4 for 34, his best figures in the IPL.
Still, 190 was not a small total, but Nicholas Pooran made it look minuscule. He smashed 70 off just 26 balls, hitting six fours and as many sixes on the way. By the time Pat Cummins had him lbw, LSG needed only 71 from 68 balls.
Mitchell Marsh, who was playing second fiddle to Pooran, also scored a fifty before Abdul Samad applied the finishing touches.
LSG chasing down their target with 23 balls and five wickets to spare was giving SRH a taste of their own medicine. Last season, Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma had taken just 9.4 overs to chase down LSG’s 165 at this very venue.
LSG knew the only way to stop the marauding SRH batting unit was to take early wickets. Shardul went in search of swing in the first over but did not find success. But in his next over, he dismissed Abhishek and Ishan Kishan off successive balls. Abhishek pulled a short ball into the hands of deep square leg, and Kishan was caught down the leg side.
Head went after the returning Avesh Khan, hitting him for two sixes and a four in the fourth over. Two overs later, he tried to take on Ravi Bishnoi but ended up skying a slog sweep. Pooran, though, put the chance down at long-on. Four balls later, Bishnoi failed to latch on to a tough return catch.
Head was on 35 at the time of the first drop but it cost LSG only 12 as Prince Yadav made a mess of Head’s stumps for his first wicket in the IPL.
Nitish Kumar Reddy and Heinrich Klaasen took SRH past 100 in the 11th over before Klaasen was run out in a bizarre fashion. Nitish hit a full toss from Prince to the bowler’s left. Prince failed to hold on to the catch but the ball found a way to ricochet onto the stumps at the non-striker’s end with Klaasen well outside his crease. Soon after, Bishnoi castled Nitish for 32 off 28, leaving SRH in a spot of bother.
In keeping with the team ethos, the SRH batters kept attacking. But while they kept hitting sixes, they also kept getting out. Aniket Verma smashed Bishnoi for two back-to-back sixes and repeated it against Digvesh Rathi in the following over before getting out for 36 off 13 balls. Cummins walked in at No. 8, hit the first three balls he faced for three sixes, and was out on the fourth. That took SRH to 180 for 8 after 18 overs. However, only ten runs came from the last two.
Mohammed Shami removed Aiden Markram in the second over of the chase but Pooran took the attack to the opposition. His first boundary came via a misfield before he smoked Simarjeet Singh over deep midwicket twice in two balls.
Bringing on a left-arm orthodox spinner with Pooran in the middle is always risky. But Cummins took that gamble with Abhishek. Pooran faced only two balls from him and slog-swept both for sixes. He has now hit seven sixes off nine balls against Abhishek in T20 cricket.
He didn’t spare Adam Zampa either, hitting him for two sixes and a four in the seventh over. Off the first 20 balls he faced, he hit five fours and six sixes.
Marsh was on 37 off 22 balls when Pooran got out. He had hit Shami for two straight sixes in the powerplay. In the 11th over, he hit Cummins for back-to-back fours to bring up his fifty off 29 balls. Cummins had him caught at long-on soon after but it was too late.
At the end of 11 overs, LSG needed only 53. They did lose Rishabh Pant and Ayush Badoni along the way but their victory was never in doubt. Samad, a former SRH player, smashed an unbeaten 22 off eight balls to complete the formalities.
Brief scores:
Lucknow Super Giants 193 for 5 in 16.1 overs (Nicholas Pooran 70, Mitchell Marsh 52, Rishabh Punt 15, David Miler 13*, Abdul Samad 22*; Mohammed Shami 1-37, Pat Cummins 2-29, Adam Zampa 1-46, Harshal Patel 1-48) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 190 for 9 in 20 overs (Travis Head 47, Aniket Verma 36, Nitish Kumar Reddy 32, Heinrich Klassen 26, Pat Cummins 18, Harshal Patel 12*; Shardul Thakur 4-34, Avesh Khan 1-45, Digvesh Rathi 1-40, Ravi Bishnoi 1-42, Prince Yadav 1-29) by five wickets
[Cricinfo]
The government to establish new restaurants to provide nutritious meals at reasonable prices.
Two powerful earthquakes kill several, trap dozens in Myanmar, Thailand
Canada PM Mark Carney says old relationship with US ‘is over’
-
News6 days agoSeniors welcome three percent increase in deposit rates
-
Features6 days agoThe US, Israel, Palestine, and Mahmoud Khalil
-
News6 days agoScholarships for children of estate workers now open
-
News7 days agoDefence Ministry of Japan Delegation visits Pathfinder Foundation
-
Foreign News4 days agoBuddhism’s holiest site erupts in protests over Hindu ‘control’ of shrine
-
News6 days agoJapanese Defence Delegation visits Pathfinder
-
Editorial7 days agoWhen promises boomerang
-
Features3 days agoCelebrating 25 Years of Excellence: The Silver Jubilee of SLIIT – PART I