Latest News
Marsh secures seven-wicket canter after Starc, Hazlewood set game up
Mitchell Marsh spoiled counterpart Shubman Gill’s ODI captaincy debut after Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli struggled in their much-anticipated comeback to international cricket.
On a damp day at Optus Stadium, the series-opening ODI was reduced to 26 overs per side with India making 136 for 9, after a series of rain delays frustrated the crowd of 42,423, having slumped to 45 for 4 against impressive new-ball bowling, particularly from Josh Hazelwood.
The weather did improve later in the day as Marsh’s unbeaten 46 off 52 balls powered Australia past their revised target of 131 runs in the 22nd over. ODI debutant Matt Renshaw finished 21 not out – almost nine years after he made his Test debut.
There was an expectation that Marsh and fellow opener Travis Head would come out aggressively, but batting was not easy in seaming conditions under lights. Head’s recent patchy form continued after slashing left-arm quick Arshdeep Singh straight to deep third, raising India’s hopes.
Marsh played against type initially, scoring just a couple of singles off his first nine deliveries, until muscling Arshdeep for six over the leg-side. With his eye in, he took the aerial route to good effect and was in total command apart from copping a blow to the helmet from a Mohammed Siraj short ball.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing for Australia with Matt Short unable to make the most of his chance at No. 3, tamely succumbing on 8 to left-arm spinner Axar Patel who was the standout performer for India with a strong allround effort.
Wicketkeeper-batter Josh Phillipe did grab his opportunity with a rollicking 37 from 29 balls in his return to the ODI team after four years having earlier performed well with the gloves.
It was a disappointing ODI return for India since their Champions Trophy triumph in March. Their batting order was not helped by numerous rain delays as the covers were used for the first time at Optus Stadium since the ground opened in 2018.
During the brief passages of play, their top order struggled to handle the back of a length bowling from Australia’s trio of quicks. Much to the disappointment of the many fans wearing blue shirts in the terraces, Rohit made a scratchy 8 while Kohli fared even worse after falling for an eight-ball duck.
Hazlewood utilised the bouncy conditions to menacing effect, bowling 35 dot balls in his brilliant spell of 2 for 20 from seven overs. Left-arm spinner Matt Kuhnemann, who was required to operate at the death with Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc bowled out, and ODI debutant Mitchell Owen also claimed two wickets.
With menacing clouds forming above, a rarity for cricket games in usually sun-baked Perth, Marsh had no hesitation to bowl despite very little grass on the surface.
Kohli has particularly fond memories of Optus Stadium having produced one of his greatest Test tons on the ground in 2018 and he also made his final Test century there last year.
Having shown no signs of rust during India’s net session ahead of the match, Kohli was pinned down by the accuracy of Hazlewood and Starc, who suckered him into a drive to catch the outside edge that was brilliantly caught at backward point by Cooper Connolly.
In likely his last game in Perth, Kohli received a standing ovation from some fans on his way to the sheds as India slumped further after Rohit had earlier been deceived by Hazlewood’s sharp bounce and nicked to second slip.
A lean looking Rohit had showed off his fitness with a quick single to get off the mark. However, other than a gorgeous straight drive, he looked sluggish much like his struggles in recent days in the nets.
The pressure fell on Gill and hopes were high that he could replicate his outstanding start to his Test captaincy, which has yielded five tons from 13 innings.
Less than a week after leading India in their Test win over West Indies, Gill showed trademark class to punch a boundary down the ground off Hazlewood before having to fight hard against probing new ball bowling.
Having seen off Starc, Gill’s debut captaincy knock ended with a whimper on 10 after he tickled down the leg side to gift Nathan Ellis a first ball wicket.
India were probably relieved by the persistent drizzle and for the first time since 1983 an ODI in Perth was shortened due to rain.
During a brief resumption, Shreyas Iyer gloved a well-directed short delivery from Hazlewood to the alert Philippe to leave India 45 for 4.
Further rain delays truncated the overs as Axar and KL Rahul on resumption had no choice but to stand and deliver. The pro-India crowd, muted for much of the day, suddenly came alive until Axar holed out to hand Kuhnemann his first wicket on home soil.
Despite consecutive sixes from Rahul, India fell away at the back end other than a very late flourish from Nitish Reddy in his ODI debut but it proved not nearly enough.
Brief scores:
Australia 131 for 3 in 21.1 overs (Mitchell Marsh 46*, Josh Phillipe 37, Matt Renshaw 21*) beat India 136 for 9 in 26 overs (Axar Patel 31, KL Rahul 38; Josh Hazelwood 2-20, Mitchell Owen 2-20, Mathew Khunemann 2-26) by seven wickets (DLS)
[Cricinfo]
Latest News
Salt and Patidar power RCB past Mumbai Indians
The toss is crucial in night matches at Wankhede Stadium with a true flat pitch and dew giving the chasing side a significant advantage. Defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru lost that toss. Then went ahead and did what you need to do: score the highest IPL score at the ground, 240, and defended it with considerable ease.
Phil Salt and Rajat Patidar set RCB up with knocks of 78 off 36 and 53 off 20, Patidar’s fastest fifty. The duo hit a hat-trick of sixes once each with Salt also taking three fours in a row. A total of 11 sixes and 10 fours flew off their bats, resulting in RCB chants at Mumbai Indians’ home ground. Between them they compensated for Virat Kohli, who himself didn’t seem too pleased with his 50 off 38 even as the other end kept producing big runs.
Off the field during the second half of the match, Kohli didn’t need to fret much from the sidelines as the spinners Suyash Sharma and KrunalPandya expertly shut the chase down. Suyash did so with the wickets of the rampaging Ryan Rickelton and Tilak Varma in his first over while Krunal bowled four overs for just 26 runs, signing off with just reward in form of Suryakumar Yadav’s scalp. The RCB spinners bowled eight overs for 73 runs and three big wickets as against MI’s two spinners conceding 83 in six overs.
Kohli registered the first boundary of the innings with a six in the first over, but it was Salt who kept on the assault, scoring 47 off 22 in the powerplay. This involved welcoming Mitchell Santner, a reluctant powerplay bowler, with three sixes and a four. MI were forced to bowl Jasprit Bumrah for two overs inside the powerplay; still RCB got to 71.
The next key moment for RCB was the introduction of legspin with a right-hand heavy batting line-up, but that didn’t matter at all with Mayank Markande extracting little turn in either direction. Salt stayed back to hit three consecutive fours off his flatter lengths, and was waiting to hit a six the moment he gave it a hint of air.
When all else failed for MI, Shardul Thakur, bowling for the first time as late as the 11th over, executed wide yorkers to tie Kohli down and take the wicket of Salt caught at extra cover.
With 25 and a wicket off the last 17 balls, MI were hoping for a way back into the contest when RCB captain Patidar walked out. For some reason, Thakur gave up his death bowling and went searching, letting Patidar get off with a chipped four over mid-off first ball.
The return of Markande proved disastrous for MI as Patidar toyed around with him, hitting three back-to-back sixes, including one reverse-sweep. From 22 off 4, the likely direction Patidar’s strike rate could travel was down, but he made sure it wasn’t a long way down.
In his second over, Thakur completely went to pieces with his wide yorkers not landing and slower short balls travelling over the head on a red-soil bouncy surface. The 10-ball over went for 23 as RCB moved to 167 for 1 in 13 overs.
RCB had a big opportunity to put matters past any plausible chase, but Kohli couldn’t get the boundaries despite trying to hit hard. Missing the reverse-sweep in his arsenal, he couldn’t take the clever Santner down, who eventually ended up with the wicket of Patidar.
Even though Bumrah’s two overs at the death were excellent, keeping him at just 35 in four overs, he has now gone five straight IPL matches without a wicket if you count the Qualifier that MI lost last year. With his 34 off 16, Tim David did enough to keep them at an even two a ball.
Rickelton got the chase off to a flying start, MI racing away to 39 for 0 in three overs and 48 for 0 in four, which promised a close match. However, Krunal’s introduction began to raise the asking rate. Only eight came off his first over with Impact Player Rasikh Dar conceding just 15 in his two overs inside the powerplay.
Rohit Sharma went off with what seemed like a hamstring injury, and at 72 for 0 in seven overs, MI were already looking at 13 an over to win. Rickelton had no time to get a sighter at Suyash, who started off with a wide wrong’un and a top edge on the slog sweep. Later in the over, he went outside leg with a wrong’un to Tilak, getting him caught at short fine leg.
Hardik walked in and hit a six first ball, but the asking rate went higher than it was at the start of the over.
MI needed 120 off 46 balls when Suryakumar got out. The asking rate soon went past three a ball, and Sherfane Rutherford’s 71 off 31 only serving to control the net-run-rate damage to MI.
Brief scores:
Royal Challengers Bengaluru 240 for 4 in 20 overs (Phil Salt 78, Patidar 53, Virat Kohli 50, Rajat Patidar 53, Tim David 34*, Jitesh Shqrma 10; Trent Boult 1-50, Hardik Pandya 1-39, Mitchell Santner 1-43, Shardul Thakur 1-32) beat Mumbai Indians 222 for 5 in 20 overs (Ryan Rickelton 37, Rohit Sharma 19, Suryakumar Yadav 33, Sherfane Rutherford 71*, Hardik Pandya 40; Jacob Duffy 1-38, Krunal Pandya 1-26, Rasikh Salam 1-23, Suyash Sharma 2-47) by 18 runs
[Cricinfo]
Latest News
Prasidh, Buttler set up comfortable win for Gujarat Titans
Prasidh Krishna is beginning to make a mark at IPL 2026. Three nights after his clever slower bouncer to David Miller sealed a tense last-ball win over Delhi Capitals, he followed it up with 4 for 28 – blending typical Test-match lengths with sharp pace-off variations – as Gujarat Titans made it two in two, this time edging out Lucknow Super Giants in their own backyard on Sunday.
Mohammed Siraj and Ashok Sharma were just as vital at the two ends of LSG’s innings, striking early and closing things out respectively. They played the perfect supporting acts to Prasidh’s headline-grabbing performance to restrict LSG to 164. GT captain Shubman Gill then calmly anchored the chase, scoring a half-century off 34 balls. His second-wicket stand of 84 with Jos Buttler helped them scale the target in 18.4 overs with seven wickets in hand.
The mini-battle to watch was Mohammed Shami vs Gill: India’s bowling veteran looking to force his way back into the international reckoning, up against the country’s current Test and ODI captain. Shami had set it up nicely, conceding just 10 runs off his first two overs, with enough movement to keep Gill honest.
It had all the makings of a proper contest. Until Gill consigned it to one-way traffic in the third, as he peeled off three fours and a six. That six was no ordinary hit, but a lofted hit on the up, straight over Shami’s head, eliciting an extra second’s pose to the cameras. The boundaries were pleasing too: a delectable leg glance, a stab through the covers, and a wristy flick over midwicket. This helped Gill gallop towards a half-century.
Buttler gave more than an inkling of form in the previous game when he made 52 off 27 against DC. Having come in at the fall of Sai Sudharsan’s wicket – he helped a half-tracker straight to short fine off Digvesh Rathi in the sixth- Buttler punched one through the covers off the third ball to raise GT’s fifty.
Rathi was unlucky not to have Buttler in his second over when he nicked behind, for Rishabh Pant to put down a regulation chance on 12. LSG would rue that missed opportunity as Buttler quickly took charge to dismantle the spinners, forcing Pant to turn to his faster men quickly.
In came Avesh Khan with a plan of trying to hit hard lengths but Buttler responded by hitting him for three back-to-back fours off the 12th over, and soon brought up his half-century, his 100th in T20s, off just 29 balls. By now, the chase was down to being a mere formality. He celebrated the fifty by reverse-sweeping Linde over point.
Gill fell with the target in sight, gloving a short ball behind off Prince Yadav, but Buttler stayed on to seal victory.
Kagiso Rabada began by being hit for 10 off his first two deliveries, but had Mitchell Marsh pick out mid-on to complete a fine comeback as GT struck early. This brought Rishabh Pant to the middle, and he seemed keen on taking the attack to the bowlers, but was snaffled by Siraj’s hard lengths as the ball caught the splice and lobbed to mid-off to leave LSG 45 for 2 in the fifth.
One second, Prasidh had hands on his head when Aiden Markram’s imperious flick just eluded a diving Glenn Phillips running across from deep square leg. Three balls later, he celebrated his first when Markram picked out deep midwicket perfectly. In his second over, Ayush Badoni fell in almost identical fashion as LSG slumped to 74 for 4 in the ninth.
That brought Nicholas Pooran to the middle, but this wasn’t the white-ball destroyer, but an avatar searching for form and confidence; his stroke play lacked any kind of fluency as the faster men kept tucking him up. Pooran seemed to have found a release when he hit Rashid Khan for back-to-back sixes, but that surge was all too brief with the end almost tame as he flat-batted Prasidh’s into-the-pitch delivery to Gill at mid-off. Pooran made 19 off 21.
He should’ve been run out off his third delivery when he tried to pinch a single to cover, but Ashok Sharma missed the stumps at the striker’s end despite having all three stumps to aim at from short cover. Then Mukul was hit on the helmet by a 150.2kph bouncer from Ashok.
But not long after, the trademark whip behind square that he unleashed to astonishment in Kolkata three nights ago, made an appearance, eliciting hopes of a grandstand finish. But that wasn’t to be as he got a big nick behind attempting to pull Prasidh’s slower bouncer. His 18 off 14 helped LSG nudge past 150, before Shami and Linde’s mini-cameo set up a 165-target.
Six overs in, it became increasingly evident those were at least 30-40 runs too little.
Brief scores:
Gujarat Titans 165 for 3 in 18.4 overs (Sai Sudarsan 15, Jos Buttler 60, Shubman Gill 56, Washington Sundar 21*, Rahul Tewatia 10*; Mohammed Shami 1-36, Prince Yadav 1-31, Digvesh Rathi 1-31) beat Lucknow Super Giants 164 for 8 in 20 overs (Aiden Markram 30, Mitchell Marsh 11, Rishabh Pant 18, Nicholas Pooran 19, Abdul Samad 18, Mukul Choudhary 18, George Linde 16, Mohammed Shami 12*; Mohammed Siraj 1-19, Kagiso Rabada 1-54, Ashok Sharma 2-32, Prasidh Krishna 4-28) by seven wickets
[Cricinfo]
Latest News
Heat Index at Caution level’ in the Northern, North-central, North-western, Western and Southern provinces and in Trincomalee district.
Warm Weather Advisory
Issued by the Natural Hazards Early Warning Centre
Issued at 3.30 p.m. on 12 April 2026, valid for 13 April 2026.
Heat index, the temperature felt on human body is likely to increase up to ‘Caution level’ at some places in the Northern, North-central, North-western, Western and Southern provinces and in Trincomalee district.
The Heat Index Forecast is calculated by using relative humidity and maximum temperature and this is the condition that is felt on your body. This is not the forecast of maximum temperature. It is generated by the Department of Meteorology for the next day period and prepared by using global numerical weather prediction model data.

Effect of the heat index on human body is mentioned in the above table and it is prepared on the advice of the Ministry of Health and Indigenous Medical Services.
ACTION REQUIRED
Job sites: Stay hydrated and takes breaks in the shade as often as possible.
Indoors: Check up on the elderly and the sick.
Vehicles: Never leave children unattended.
Outdoors: Limit strenuous outdoor activities, find shade and stay hydrated.
Dress: Wear lightweight and white or light-colored clothing.
Note:
In addition, please refer to advisories issued by the Disaster Preparedness & Response Division, Ministry of Health in this regard as well. For further clarifications please contact 011-7446491.
-
News2 days agoCEB orders temporary shutdown of large rooftop solar systems
-
News7 days agoLankan-origin actress Subashini found dead in India
-
News5 days agoAG: Coal procurement full of irregularities
-
Business4 days agoIsraeli attack on Lebanon triggers local stock market volatility
-
Business5 days agoHayleys Mobility introduces Premium OMODA C9 PHEV
-
News7 days agoUN Regional Director launches SL’s first Country Gender Equality Profile during official visit
-
News7 days agoDialog Launches ‘GanuDenu QR’, Making Cashless Transfers Free for All with eZ Cash and Dialog Finance
-
Business4 days agoHNB Assurance marks 25 years with strategic transformation to ‘HNB Life’
