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Rusell, Rutherford star as West Indies bag consolatory win
Andre Russell’s belligerent knock (71 off 29) and his match-defining 139-run stand with Sherfane Rutherford (67* off 40) alongside Roston Chase’s all-round brilliance (37 off 20 and 2-19) gave West Indies a 37-run win over Australia in the final T20I in Perth on Tuesday (February 13). The result gave the visitors a consolatory victory to sign off the tour after Australia had already pocketed the series with wins in the previous two games. Russell and Rutherford produced an explosive display to take West Indies to an imposing total of 220 – the highest score by a visiting side in Australia in this format. The hosts tried to make a game of the big chase through David Warner (81 off 49) but lost too many wickets in the middle overs to eventually fall well short.
Opting to bat, West Indies found themselves in a soup at 17/3 with Australia’s new-ball bowlers getting the ball to talk. There was a hint of movement and the typical Perth bounce made shot-making difficult early on. Xavier Bartlett got rid of Johnson Charles and Kyle Mayers while Jason Behrendorff took the big fish Nicholas Pooran.
West Indies’ refused to bow down despite the early wickets. Skipper Rovman Powell joined Chase as the duo added a quickfire 55 runs off just 30 balls to give some momentum to the innings. Their efforts showed that there were runs to be made on this Perth surface if batters were willing to get themselves in. The counter-punch reversed pressure back on Australia’s bowlers.
The Aussies were desperate for the partnership to be broken and their ace spinner Adam Zampa did just that. He cleaned up Chase while Aaron Hardie then got Powell to nick one through to the ‘keeper. The two set batters fell in the space of six deliveries and at 79/5, Australia were back to bossing the contest.
The visitors continued their aggressive approach with the bat. Rutherford and Russell kept the momentum going but were also careful in their shot selection. They selectively took on their match-ups and kept the scoreboard racing. It’s in the last six overs that carnage occurred. As many as 84 runs came off the final 36 deliveries including a 28-run over from Zampa. From a point where 170 looked like a good score, West Indies zoomed past 200 and touched the 220-run mark. Russell was at his brutal best, smashing the ball to all parts while Rutherford was more about finesse in his strokes. The left-hander, though, wasn’t shy of unleashing his power during the odd stroke.
The home side needed a strong powerplay and a base to get close to the massive target. Warner led the charge, being the aggressor in the 68-run opening stand with skipper Mitchell Marsh. The left-hander also dominated the 46-run stand that followed with Aaron Hardie. What West Indies did well was to ensure that Warner’s partners weren’t able to get going at his rate of scoring. Marsh and Hardie were both unable to get going at their home ground, leaving Warner to do the heavylifting.
With Warner at the crease, Australia were in with a chance. The equation read 108 runs needed off 48 balls – a required rate of 13.5 runs-per-over. It might sound a bit too many but Perth has historically been a ground where a truckload of runs have come at the back end of the innings. West Indies had to get Warner and Chase obliged with his off-breaks, getting the opener to hole out to deep mid-wicket. Shortly therafter, he also had Josh Inglis to a sharp return catch and the Australian innings hit a roadblock.
The required rate shot up drastically and with Glenn Maxwell struggling, the game was all but done. Tim David played a breezy cameo at the end but it only served in limiting the damage.
Brief scores:
West Indies 220/6 in 20 overs (Andre Russell 71, Sherfane Rutherford 67*, Roston Chase 37, Rovman Powell 21; Xavier Bartlett 2-37) beat Australia 183/5 in 20 overs (David Warner 81, Tim David 41*; Romairo Shepherd 2-31, Roston Chase 2-19) by 37 runs
Rescue workers are racing to find dozens of people still missing following a landslide at a landfill site in the central Philippines that occurred earlier this week, an official has said.
Mayor Nestor Archival said on Saturday that signs of life had been detected at the site in Cebu City, two days after the incident.
Four people have been confirmed dead so far, Archival said, while 12 others have been taken to hospital.
Conditions for emergency services working at the site were challenging, the mayor added, with unstable debris posing a hazard and crew waiting for better equipment to arrive.
The privately-owned Binaliw landfill collapsed on Thursday while 110 workers were on site, officials said.
Archival said in a Facebook post on Saturday morning: “Authorities confirmed the presence of detected signs of life in specific areas, requiring continued careful excavation and the deployment of a more advanced 50-ton crane.”
Relatives of those missing have been waiting anxiously for any news of their whereabouts. More than 30 people, all workers at the landfill, are thought to be missing.
“We are just hoping that we can get someone alive… We are racing against time, that’s why our deployment is 24/7,” Cebu City councillor Dave Tumulak, chairman of the city’s disaster council, told news agency AFP.
Jerahmey Espinoza, whose husband is missing, told news agency Reuters at the site on Saturday: “They haven’t seen him or located him ever since the disaster happened. We’re still hopeful that he’s alive.”
The cause of the collapse remains unclear, but Cebu City councillor Joel Garganera previously said it was likely the result of poor waste management practices.
Operators had been cutting into the mountain, digging the soil out and then piling garbage to form another mountain of waste, Garganera told local newspaper The Freeman on Friday.
The Binaliw landfill covers an area of about 15 hectares (37 acres).
Landfills are common in major Philippine cities like Cebu, which is the trading centre and transportation gateway of the Visayas, the archipelago nation’s central islands.
[BBC]
US President Donald Trump has asked for at least $100bn (£75bn) in oil industry spending for Venezuela, but received a lukewarm response at the White House as one executive warned the South American country was currently “uninvestable”.
Bosses of the biggest US oil firms who attended the meeting acknowledged that Venezuela, sitting on vast energy reserves, represented an enticing opportunity.
But they said significant changes would be needed to make the region an attractive investment. No major financial commitments were immediately forthcoming.
Trump has said he will unleash the South American nation’s oil after US forces seized its leader Nicolas Maduro in a 3 January raid on its capital.
“One of the things the United States gets out of this will be even lower energy prices,” Trump said in Friday’s meeting at the White House.
But the oil bosses present expressed caution.
Exxon’s chief executive Darren Woods said: “We have had our assets seized there twice and so you can imagine to re-enter a third time would require some pretty significant changes from what we’ve historically seen and what is currently the state.”
“Today it’s uninvestable.”
Venezuela has had a complicated relationship with international oil firms since oil was discovered in its territory more than 100 years ago.
Chevron is the last remaining major American oil firm still operating in the country.
A handful of companies from other countries, including Spain’s Repsol and Italy’s Eni, both of which were represented at the White House meeting, are also active.
Trump said his administration would decide which firms would be allowed to operate.
“You’re dealing with us directly. You’re not dealing with Venezuela at all. We don’t want you to deal with Venezuela,” he said.
The White House has said it is working to “selectively” roll back US sanctions that have restricted sales of Venezuelan oil.
Officials say they have been coordinating with interim authorities in the country, which is currently led by Maduro’s former second-in-command, Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez.
But they have also made clear they intend to exert control over the sales, as a way to maintain leverage over Rodríguez’s government.
The US this week has seized several oil tankers carrying sanctioned crude. American officials have said they are working to set up a sales process, which would deposit money raised into US-controlled accounts.
“We are open for business,” Trump said.
On Friday, Trump signed an executive order that seeks to prohibit US courts from seizing revenue that the US collects from Venezuelan oil and holds in American Treasury accounts.
Any court attempt to access those funds would interfere with US foreign relations and international goodwill, the executive order states.
“President Trump is preventing the seizure of Venezuelan oil revenue that could undermine critical US efforts to ensure economic and political stability in Venezuela,” the White House wrote in a fact sheet about the order.
The US and its partner forces have carried out large-scale strikes against Islamic State (IS) group targets in Syria, the US Central Command (Centcom) has announced.
US President Donald Trump directed the strikes on Saturday, which are part of Operation Hawkeye Strike, in retaliation to the IS group’s deadly attack on US forces in Syria on 13 December, Centcom wrote on X.
The strikes were conducted in an effort to combat terrorism and protect US and partner forces in the region, according to Centcom.
“Our message remains strong: if you harm our warfighters, we will find you and kill you anywhere in the world, no matter how hard you try to evade justice,” Centcom said.
The US and its partner forces fired more than 90 precision munitions at more than 35 targets in an operation that involved more than 20 aircraft, an official told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.
The official added that aircraft including F-15Es, A-10s, AC-130Js, MQ-9s and Jordanian F-16s had taken part in the strikes.
The location of the strikes and the extent of any casualties is not yet clear.
“We will never forget, and never relent,” Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on X on Saturday in reference to the military action.
The Trump administration first announced Operation Hawkeye Strike in December after an IS gunman killed two US soldiers and a US civilian interpreter in an ambush in Palmyra, located in the centre of Syria.
“This is not the beginning of a war – it is a declaration of vengeance,” Hegseth said when announcing the operation in December.
“The United States of America, under President Trump’s leadership, will never hesitate and never relent to defend our people.”
Prior to the latest strikes on Saturday, US forces killed or captured nearly 25 IS group members in 11 missions between 20 December and 29 December as part of Operation Hawkeye Strike, Centcom said.
In the operation’s first mission on 19 December, US and Jordanian forces carried out a “massive strike” against the IS group, deploying fighter jets, attack helicopters and artillery to strike “more than 70 targets at multiple locations across central Syria”, according to Centcom.
That operation, it said, “employed more than 100 precision munitions” targeting known IS infrastructure and weapons sites.
[BBC]
GENERAL WEATHER FORECAST FOR NEXT 36 HOURS
National Communication Programme for Child Health Promotion (SBCC) has been launched. – PM
Level I landslide early warnings issued to the Districts of Badulla, Kandy, Matale and Nuwara-Eliya extended
Rescuers race to find dozens missing in deadly Philippines landfill collapse
Trump seeks $100bn for Venezuela oil, but Exxon boss says country ‘uninvestable’
US military strikes Islamic State group targets in Syria, officials say
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