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Miller stands tall amidst ruins as South Africa fold for 212
A century from David Miller saw South Africa to 212 in tricky batting conditions against Australia in the second semifinal of World Cup 2023. Miller’s sixth ODI hundred, coming on an Eden Gardens surface assisting both seamers and spinners, helped South Africa recover from 24 for 4 after opting to bat.
Batting under overcast skies was something even Pat Cummins admitted wanting to do, but it took only a few overs from Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood to hammer home the point that batting wasn’t going to be easy against the new ball. Bavuma lasted all of five deliveries at the crease, edging behind a delivery from Starc on nought but it was Hazlewood at the other end who proved to be more of a menace.
Hazlewood’s first spell read 6-1-12-2, the two wickets being that of de Kock (caught at mid-on after a string of dot balls) and Rassie van der Dussen (edged to second slip). Starc wasn’t too far behind at the other end, bowling seven overs on the trot and picking 2 for 18 in his first spell. Markram was the other batter Starc accounted for with an edge to backward point
So tight were the lines and lengths from the new-ball bowlers, and so good Australia’s ground fielding, that South Africa huffed and puffed to 18/2 at the end of 10 overs. The first boundary of the match took as many as 53 balls to come.
What followed the four wickets was a 95-run association between Miller and Heinrich Klaasen, both of whom laid into inconsistent lengths from Adam Zampa. Six of the eight sixes hit in the innings were off Zampa’s bowling, with both Miller and Klaasen hitting two each.
Just when SA looked a bit steady after having added 44 runs between overs 21 and 30, Travis Head struck gold in his first over and returned two wickets off two balls. Bowling slow and accurate, Head beat Klaasen for length and bowled him by skidding one past his outside edge. Next ball, Marco Jansen was pinned in front by one that spun in from a long way outside off. That’s how difficult and fickle the conditions were in Kolkata.
There was another 53-run rearguard between Miller and Gerald Coetzee for the seventh wicket, with Miller doing most of the scoring in that partnership. It could have gone on for longer had Coetzee reviewed the decision for caught-behind; the short ball wasn’t top-edged as the on-field umpire thought but deflected off his arm behind to the keeper.
Miller got to his hundred off 115 balls, hitting 8 fours and 5 sixes en route to a memorable innings in a World Cup knockout but he would rue not batting until the end of 50 overs. Two balls after reaching the milestone, Miller fell while trying to pull one of the many short balls that Pat Cummins bowled from round the wicket.
Brief Scores:
South Africa 213 in 49.4 overs (David Miller 101, Heinrich Klassen 47 ; Mitchell Starc 3-34, Pat Cummins 3-51, Josh Hazlewood 2-12) vs Australia
Some 360 bodies have been recovered and more than 1,400 people are missing across Nepal and China’s Tibet region after a huge collapse of mud and rock into a Himalayan river triggered catastrophic flooding across local towns and valleys, authorities have said.
Rescue teams waded through mud on Thursday searching for the missing, as authorities in Nepal said at least 359 people have been killed there.
At least three people have died in the neighbouring Tibet region.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang arrived at the mudslide site in Tibet on Thursday afternoon to “guide emergency rescue and relief work” a day after the disaster, state media reported.
Nepalese police and tourism officials said that more than 500 foreigners were among 910 people missing in Nepal.
Among the missing are tourists from more than two dozen countries: 177 are from India, 63 from the United States, 34 from Australia, 33 from the United Kingdom, and 25 from Canada.
Beijing’s foreign ministry also said nearly 100 Chinese nationals were among the missing in Nepal.
In Tibet’s Gyirong county, 558 people are reported missing, including 260 foreign nationals, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.
Search and rescue operations are proving to be a “massive challenge” as just simply “getting to the affected areas … to try and recover the survivors”, is proving to be extremely difficult as the roads and bridges there have suffered extensive damage, said Al Jazeera’s Minelle Fernandez, reporting from the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu.
[Aljazeera]
India 503/9 decl (Devdutt Padikkal 117, Dhruv Jurel 115; Asitha Fernando 4-106, Prabath Jayasuriya 2-132) drew with Sri Lanka 290 (Sonal Dinusha 103, Pasindu Sooriyabandara 80; Prasidh Krishna 3-52, Manav Suthar 3-85) and 429/9 f/o (Sonal Dinusha 133*, Pasindu Sooriyabandara 92; Ravindra Jadeja 3-94, Manav Suthar 3-121)
Asif Khan the UAE batter, has been banned for 15 months after admitting to having tested positive for a banned substance – “a metabolite of mesterolone” – in an out-of-competition test conducted in September 2025, the ICC said in a statement on Thursday.
The statement said that Asif, 36, “had admitted the violation” of Article 2.1 of the ICC’s anti-doping code and accepted the period of ineligibility “pursuant to a case resolution agreement entered into with the World Anti-Doping Agency and the ICC”, which means there is no right to appeal on the part of the player.
The sanction is effective from September 8, 2025 and will run until December 7, 2026.
“Asif may return to training with a team or use the facilities of a club or other ICC Member organisation from 8 October 2026 but will only be eligible to play from 8 December,” the statement added. “The player’s individual results from 8 September 2025 until his provisional suspension on 29 December 2025 have been disqualified, along with all resulting consequences, including the loss of any medals, points, prize money or prizes.”
Asif, a former Pakistan Under-19 cricketer, made his UAE debut in March 2022 in an ODI against Oman in the ICC’s Cricket World Cup League 2. He turned out in 38 ODIs and 56 T20Is between then and September 2025.
The last three of those T20Is, against India, Oman and Pakistan in the T20 Asia Cup in 2025, came after September 8, and will be removed from his record.
[Cricinfo]
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