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Mehidy, Shanto power Bangladesh into the Super Fours
Bangladesh bounced back from their defeat against Sri Lanka with a much-improved batting display to thump Afghanistan and secure a spot in the Super Fours of Asia Cup 2023.
Centuries from the in-form Najmul Hossain Shanto and makeshift opener Mehidy Hassan Miraz helped Bangladesh post an imposing 334 for 5 before Taksin Ahmed and Shoriful Islam helped bowl Afghanistan out for 245.
Shanto followed up his fighting 89 against Sri Lanka with a brisk second ODI century, while Mehidy posted his highest score in the format before retiring hurt due to cramps in his left arm.
Mehidy, opening the batting for the first time in ODIs since the 2018 Asia Cup final, took his time to get in and it was Mohammad Naim who dominated the powerplay. Naim took the attack to the bowlers from the first over, slapping Fazalhaq Farooqi’s second delivery through point for the first boundary of the match.
Bangladesh were ticking along at around a run a ball for the powerplay and almost completed it without taking any damage but for a terrific googly from Mujeeb Ur Rahman that turned past Naim’s outside edge to crash into his off stump.
Surprisingly, it was Towhid Hridoy who came out at No. 3 ahead of Shanto, but Shanto did not have to wait long to get in the action as Hridoy was out second ball, edging Gulbadin Naib to first slip.
Shanto took six deliveries to get off the mark, with a boundary through the leg side, and then found his rhythm, hitting Naib for back-to-back fours. Mehidy and Shanto proceeded to wear Afghanistan down with a 194-run partnership off 190 deliveries before Mehidy retired hurt.
Afghanistan’s star spinner, Rashid Khan, hurt himself while fielding and was introduced only in the 17th over. He started with a maiden but bowled only four overs in his first spell and was reintroduced for a second spell in the 32nd over.
Bangladesh had injury concerns of their own, with Mehidy struggling throughout the innings and Shanto also pulling up while completing a run, but both batters fought on in the Lahore heat. Mehidy reached his half-century in the 24th over; Shanto pulled Farooqi for a six in the 31st to get to his.
Mehidy got to his century off 115 deliveries, scampering for a single after miscuing a pull off Naib. When Rashid came back for his third spell in the 42nd over, Shanto pulled him for two boundaries in a 12-run over. In the next, Mehidy went inside out to hit Mujeeb for a six over extra cover before physios had to come out to treat him for cramps. Mehidy left the field but Shanto, who had scored 89 against Sri Lanka, reached a 101-ball century in the same over.
Shanto was run out for 104, having slipped while attempting a single after reverse-sweeping Mujeeb.
Bangladesh carried the momentum into their defence of 335, with Shoriful Islam trapping Rahmanullah Gurbaz lbw with the fourth delivery of the second over. Shoriful could have had Gurbaz two balls earlier when rapped him on the pads with an inswinger but Bangladesh chose not to review the on-field not-out decision. It did not prove costly.
Ibrahim Zadran and Rahmat Shah then put on a 78-run stand off 97 deliveries, but Rahmat taking 57 deliveries for his 33 meant the asking rate was rising with every over. Rahmat eventually fell to a slower one from Taskin that stayed low.
Ibrahim tried to keep Afghanistan in the hunt with a 74-ball 75 but edged Hasan Mahmud and Mushfiqur Rahim took a brilliant one-handed catch diving to his right.
Hashmatullah Shahidi and Najibullah Zadran picked up the tempo, adding 62 off 52 deliveries for the fourth wicket before Najibullah missed a swipe across the line and was bowled by Mehidy.
Shoriful then had Shahidi caught at deep third before knocking Gulbadin Naib’s stumps for his third wicket. Taskin finished with four, claiming the wickets of Mohammad Nabi, Rashid and Mujeeb at the back end.
Through Dane Paterson’s five-fer, Corbin Bosch’s four-wicket haul on debut and Aiden Markram’s gutsy 47*, South Africa ended Day 1 of the first Test against Pakistan in a better position compared to the visitors. They finished at 82 for 3 at Stumps, trailing Pakistan’s 211 by 129 runs.
Despite Kagiso Rabada being the best bowler in terms of line and length for the hosts, he remained wicketless after testing the batters on both sides of the willow.
The hosts quickly managed to pick up the last wicket of Khurram Shahzad three balls into the final session bringing a strange Pakistan innings to an end who were aggressive despite losing regular clumps of wickets.
Markram then got South Africa’s innings underway with an elegant straight drive to the boundary but Shahzad accounted for his partner Tony de Zorzi as he rattled the stumps. With a peach of a delivery, Shahzad got one to seam inwards and had de Zorzi bowled for just two. Ryan Rickelton survived a review after he shouldered arms to a ball which came inwards but fortunately for him was missing the off-stump.
Markram punished two poor deliveries for four off Mohammad Abbas as he moved into double digits but Shahzad scalped his partner, getting him to nick behind to the ‘keeper. Markram and new batter Tristan Stubbs steadied the ship with a 44-run partnership which was dominated by the former. Markram played the ball with soft hands and guided testing deliveries to the fence along with pouncing on any width on offer.
Stubbs, who made only nine, was dismissed in an unfortunate manner with the ball keeping low and trapping him LBW. Skipper Temba Bavuma and Markram then played out the remaining overs to take South Africa to Stumps without any further wickets.
Earlier on, Pakistan survived the first hour of play unscathed but the introduction of Bosch changed the course of the game immediately. Shan Masood drove loosely away from his body, edging one to Marco Jansen at gully, off Bosch’s first ball in Test cricket before Paterson picked up Saim Ayub.
Babar Azam scored only four while Saud Shakeel played a strange six-ball 14 in a mindlessly aggressive innings as Pakistan had fallen to 56 for 4 before Lunch.
Kamran Ghulam and Mohammad Rizwan resurrected the innings with an 81-run stand but the former threw his wicket almost immediately after reaching his milestone, as Paterson struck in the first over of his fresh spell. Ghulam had played a wild swipe to deep backward-square leg.
Salman Agha too raced off the blocks with a boundary but Rizwan fell soon after edging one to slips as Paterson picked up his fourth. Salman and Aamer Jamal attempted to resurrect the innings with a mini partnership of 47 runs in quick time before a mini collapse ensued as Jamal chopped one back on to his stumps before Salman and Naseem Shah departed within the next eight balls.
Brief Scores:
Pakistan 211 (Kamran Ghulam 54, Aamer Jamal 28; Dane Paterson 5-35, Corbin Bosch 4-24) lead South Africa 82/3 (Aiden Markram 47*, Tristan Stubbs 9; Khurram Shahzad 2-28, Mohammad Abbas 1-36) by 129 runs.
With his family and well-wishers watching along from the Queens Sports Club balcony, Zimbabwe’s veteran batter Sean Williams celebrated his fifth Test ton in Bulawayo to give the hosts the upper hand in the Boxing Day Test against Afghanistan, as they finished on 363 for 4.
Williams not only negated Afghanistan’s spin challenge comfortably but also dominated the other bowlers to finish unbeaten on 145. His control percentage of 90 on a surface that offered decent turn right from the start of play displayed just that, with the inexperienced Afghanistan bowling attack – the visitors were missing Rashid Khan for the Test owing to personal reasons – looking both deflated and bruised by the end of it.
Walking in at the start of the second session to face his first ball with Zimbabwe at 92 for 2, Williams relied on his footwork to get on top of the bowling. Usually a frequent sweeper, Williams, on this occasion, took to the cuts, drives and pulls to shepherd the Zimbabwe innings. With Afghanistan not offering anything too full knowing Williams’ love for the sweep, he countered the bowlers’ lengths by rocking back or going on to the front foot with equal ease.
When Williams charged down the track, he lifted sixes over long-on and long-off. When he hung back, he created the time to slap boundaries through the off side. Williams’ enterprising batting earned him a half-century off 58 balls, and a century off 115.
But Williams’ innings wasn’t the only one to help Zimbabwe finish the day on a high. Opener Ben Curran, one of three Zimbabwe debutants and one of six across the two XIs, set the tone early with 68 off 74 balls. He welcomed fellow debutant Azmatullah Omarzai into Test cricket with a boundary off the allrounder’s first ball in the format, before unleashing ten more boundaries.
Curran was the majority contributor in a 43-run opening partnership with Joylord Gumbie (9), and a 49-run second-wicket stand with Takudzwanashe Kaitano (46), but fell to teen debutant AM Ghanzafar in the last over before lunch after a wrong’un sneaked through his defence to knock his stumps back.
Kaitano and Dion Myers (27), batting at No. 5, could not make full use of their starts, but their time in the middle ensured Zimbabwe lost just one wicket apiece in the two sessions after lunch. With Williams, Kaitano added 78 for the third wicket, while Myers put on 50 for the fourth.
Myers’ dismissal in the 56th over, caught and bowled by Ghazanfar for his second strike, brought in Zimbabwe’s captain Craig Ervine at No. 6, and he made certain that Afghanistan finished the day with way more questions than answers. With Williams showing how to score freely, Ervine dug in and quietly brought up his sixth Test fifty with a leg-side dominant innings.
Ervine’s knock was chanceless, unlike Williams, who, when on 124, needed the aid of a no-ball from Zahir Khan to continue batting. However, Ervine’s 56 in an unbeaten partnership of 143 for the sixth wicket was equally crucial for Zimbabwe to stamp their dominance on the day.
Play was called off five overs before the scheduled stumps owing to bad light, with Zimbabwe ending the day with a run rate of 4.27.
Brief scores:
Zimbabwe 363 for 4 in 85 overs (Sean Williams 145*, Ben Curran 68, Takudzwanashe Kaitano 46, Craig Ervine 56*; AM Ghazanfar 2-83) vs Afghanistan
[Cricinfo]
Former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh has died at the age of 92.
Singh was one of India’s longest-serving prime ministers and he was considered the architect of key liberalising economic reforms, as premier from 2004-2014 and before that as finance minister.
He had been admitted to a hospital in the capital Delhi after his health condition deteriorated, reports say.
Among those who paid tribute to Singh on Thursday were Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who wrote on social media that “India mourns the loss of one of its most distinguished leaders”.
Modi said that Singh’s “wisdom and humility were always visible” during their interactions and that he had “made extensive efforts to improve people’s lives” during his time as prime minister.
Priyanka Gandhi, the daughter of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and a Congress party member, said that Singh was “genuinely egalitarian, wise, strong-willed and courageous until the end”.
Her brother Rahul, who leads Congress, said he had “lost a mentor and guide”.
Singh was the first Indian leader since Jawaharlal Nehru to be re-elected after serving a full first term, and the first Sikh to hold the country’s top post. He made a public apology in parliament for the 1984 riots in which some 3,000 Sikhs were killed.
But his second term in office was marred by a string of corruption allegations that dogged his administration. The scandals, many say, were partially responsible for his Congress party’s crushing defeat in the 2014 general election.
Singh was born on 26 September 1932, in a desolate village in the Punjab province of undivided India, which lacked both water and electricity.
After attending Panjab University he took a master’s degree at the University of Cambridge and then a DPhil at Oxford.
While studying at Cambridge, the lack of funds bothered Singh, his daughter, Daman Singh, wrote in a book on her parents.
“His tuition and living expenses came to about £600 a year. The Panjab University scholarship gave him about £160. For the rest he had to depend on his father. Manmohan was careful to live very stingily. Subsidised meals in the dining hall were relatively cheap at two shillings sixpence.”
Daman Singh remembered her father as “completely helpless about the house and could neither boil an egg, nor switch on the television”.
His unexpected appointment capped a long and illustrious career as an academic and civil servant – he served as an economic adviser to the government, and became the governor of India’s central bank.
In his maiden speech as finance minister he famously quoted Victor Hugo, saying that “no power on Earth can stop an idea whose time has come”.
That served as a launchpad for an ambitious and unprecedented economic reform programme: he cut taxes, devalued the rupee, privatised state-run companies and encouraged foreign investment.
The economy revived, industry picked up, inflation was checked and growth rates remained consistently high in the 1990s.
Manmohan Singh was a man acutely aware of his lack of a political base. “It is nice to be a statesman, but in order to be a statesman in a democracy you first have to win elections,” he once said.
When he tried to win election to India’s lower house in 1999, he was defeated. He sat instead in the upper house, chosen by his own Congress party.
The same happened in 2004, when Singh was first appointed prime minister after Congress president Sonia Gandhi turned down the post – apparently to protect the party from damaging attacks over her Italian origins. Critics however alleged that Sonia Gandhi was the real source of power while he was prime minister, and that he was never truly in charge.
The biggest triumph during his first five-year term was to bring India out of nuclear isolation by signing a landmark deal securing access to American nuclear technology.
But the deal came at a price – the government’s Communist allies withdrew support after protesting against it, and Congress had to make up lost numbers by enlisting the support of another party amid charges of vote-buying.
A consensus builder, Singh presided over a coalition of sometimes difficult, assertive and potentially unruly regional coalition allies and supporters.
Although he earned respect for his integrity and intelligence, he also had a reputation for being soft and indecisive. Some critics claimed that the pace of reform slowed and he failed to achieve the same momentum he had while finance minister.
When Singh guided Congress to a second, decisive election victory in 2009, he vowed that the party would “rise to the occasion”.
But the gloss soon began to wear off and his second term was in the news mostly for all the wrong reasons: several scandals involving his cabinet ministers which allegedly cost the country billions of dollars, a parliament stalled by the opposition, and a huge policy paralysis that resulted in a serious economic downturn.
LK Advani, a senior leader in the rival BJP party, called Singh India’s “weakest prime minister”.
Manmohan Singh defended his record, saying his government had worked with “utmost commitment and dedication for the country and the welfare of its people”.
Singh adopted the pragmatic foreign policies pursued by his two predecessors.
He continued the peace process with Pakistan – though this process was hampered by attacks blamed on Pakistani militants, culminating in the Mumbai gun and bomb attack of November 2008.
He tried to end the border dispute with China, brokering a deal to reopen the Nathu La pass into Tibet which had been closed for more than 40 years.
Singh increased financial support for Afghanistan and became the first Indian leader to visit the country for nearly 30 years.
He also angered many opposition politicians by appearing to end relations with India’s old ally, Iran.
A studious former academic and bureaucrat, he was known for being self-effacing and always kept a low profile. His social media account was noted mostly for dull entries and had a limited number of followers.
A man of few words, his calm demeanour nevertheless won him many admirers.
Responding to questions on a coal scandal involving the illegal allocation of licences worth billions of dollars, he defended his silence on the issue by saying it was “better than thousands of answers”.
In 2015 he was summoned to appear in court to answer allegations of criminal conspiracy, breach of trust and corruption related offences. An upset Singh told reporters that he was “open for legal scrutiny” and that the “truth will prevail”.
After his time as premier, Singh remained deeply engaged with the issues of the day as a senior leader of the main opposition Congress party despite his advancing age.
In August 2020, he told the BBC in a rare interview that India needed to take three steps “immediately” to stem the economic damage of the coronavirus pandemic, which had sent the country’s economy into a recession.
The government needed to provide direct cash assistance to people, make capital available for businesses, and fix the financial sector, he said.
History will remember Singh for bringing India out of economic and nuclear isolation, although some historians may suggest he should have retired earlier.
“I honestly believe that history will be kinder to me than the contemporary media, or for that matter, the opposition parties in parliament,” he told an interviewer in 2014.
Singh is survived by his wife and three daughters.
[BBC]
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