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Samarawickrama hits 66* before first ODI is washed out
Harshitha Smarawickrama scored an unbeaten 66 and appeared to steady Sri Lanka’s effort in Napier before incessant rain forced a washout in the first ODI after 36.4 overs of action with the visitors at 147 for 5.
Asked to bat by Suzie Bates, Sri Lanka slid from 70 for 1 to 94 for 4, but the game had nearly evened up courtesy Samarawickrama’s second fifty-plus score in ODIs. The rain, though, meant no further play, and after a three-hour break, the umpires called off the contest.
Chamari Athapaththu was the first batter dismissed, for a 21-ball 9, with seamer Bree Illing striking with the new ball. Samarawickrama and Vishmi Gunaratne, the other opener, then added 45 for the second wicket.
Jess Kerr ended the stand when Gunaratne edged one behind to Polly Inglis in the 19th over, following which No. 4 Kavisha Dilhari and No. 5 Manudi Nanayakkara fell to Bates and Illing respectively.
A promising partnership of 44 for the fifth wicket ended when Eden Carson ran Nilakshika Silva out for 17. Samarawickrama, with her seven fours, held one end up amid the dismissals and reached her fifty in 83 balls. She had wicketkeeper Anushka Sanjeewani (2*) for company when rain arrived.
The teams now move to Nelson for the next two games in the series.
Brief scores:
Sri Lanka Women 147 for 5 (Harshitha Samarawickrama 66*, Vishmi Guneratne 30, Bree Illing 2-42) vs New Zealand Women – No result
[Cricinfo]
US President Donald Trump and his advisers have defended sweeping tariffs on imports and vowed to stay the course, despite market turmoil and calls to avoid a trade war.
In a series of television interviews, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent played down recent stock market falls and Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, insisted reciprocal tariffs would be implemented as planned.
Bessent said there was “no reason” to expect a recession as a result of the turmoil. “This is an adjustment process,” he said.
Meanwhile, another top adviser, Kevin Hassett, said more than 50 countries have contacted Trump to try to negotiate a deal.
All three major stock indexes in the US plunged more than 5% on Friday, while the S&P 500 dropped almost 6% in the worst week for the US stock market since 2020.
In a sign market fragility could continue this week, Saudi Arabia’s stock exchange – which trades on Sundays – ended nearly 7% lower, its biggest daily loss since the pandemic, state-owned media said.
US banking giant JP Morgan has predicted a 60% chance of a US and global recession following Trump’s tariffs announcement.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday evening, Trump said European and Asian countries are “dying to make a deal”.
He also pushed back against a reporter’s inquiry about American consumers’ “pain threshold” as fears of steep price increases and a market recession grow.
“I think your question is so stupid,” he told the reporter. “I don’t want anything to go down. But sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”
Challenged about the turmoil, Lutnick told CBS News on Sunday that the 10% “baseline” tariff on all imports, which came into effect a day earlier, will definitely “stay in place for days and weeks”.
Lutnick went on say the steeper reciprocal tariffs were still on track.
Higher custom tariffs on roughly 60 countries, dubbed the “worst offenders”, are due to come into effect on Wednesday 9 April.
When asked about these tariffs, Lutnick said they were coming. “Trump announced it and he wasn’t kidding,” he said.
Lutnick also defended tariffs imposed on two tiny Antarctic islands populated only by penguins, saying it was to close “loopholes” for countries such as China to “ship through”.
Bessent used an interview with Meet the Press on NBC to argue Trump had “created maximum leverage for himself, and more than 50 countries have approached the administration about lowering their non-tariff trade barriers, lowering their tariffs, stopping currency manipulation”.
Kevin Hassett, another top economic adviser to Trump, also repeated the claim that more than 50 countries had expressed a desire to begin negotiations. Neither Hassett nor Bessent gave further details of which countries had been in touch.
Elsewhere, Indonesia and Taiwan have said over the weekend that they will not impose retaliatory tariffs after the US announced a 32% levy on imports from both countries.
Vietnam’s leader, To Lam, has asked Trump to delay a 46% duty on Vietnamese exports to the US by “at least 45 days”, according to a letter seen by news agency AFP and the New York Times.
However, China announced on Friday that it will impose a 34% tariff on all US imports, beginning on Thursday 10 April.
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer warned on Saturday that “the world as we knew it has gone”.
Starmer said the UK government will keep pushing for an economic deal with the US that avoids some of the tariffs.
A Downing Street spokesman added Starmer and new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney agreed in a phone call that “an all-out trade war is in no-one’s interest”.
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to meet Trump for trade talks in Washington DC.
Netanyahu, speaking to reporters as he boarded a plane-bound for the US, said he is “the first international leader that is meeting with Trump” since the new tariffs were introduced.
He says this shows their “personal connection and the connection between our countries that is so essential in this time”.
Anti-Trump protests were held in cities across the US over the weekend, in the largest nationwide show of opposition since the president took office in January.
Hundreds of thousands of people turned out in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Washington DC, among other cities, with protesters citing grievances with Trump’s agenda ranging from social to economic issues.
Trump has urged the US to “hang tough” after the market turmoil.
[BBC]
Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) suffered another batting malfunction, this time on a slow, black-soil surface at home, crashing to their fourth successive defeat in IPL 2025. Having lost Travishek in the powerplay, SRH waited until the 13th over to see the first six of the innings, and managed only one more after that Mohammad Siraj caused irreparable damage right from the start, ending with his career-best IPL figures of 4 for 17.
Pat Cummins’ cameo (22* off nine balls) and then his dismissal of Jos Buttler for a duck in Gujarat Titans’ (GT) chase of 153 gave SRH some hope, but that faded away once Washington Sundar clattered 23 off nine balls in the powerplay. Earlier in the day, GT didn’t need Washington with the ball, but his attacking enterprise at No. 4 settled their chase on a slow pitch. Washington fell agonisingly short of a maiden IPL half-century, but his captain Shubman Gill ushered GT home, with an unbeaten 61 off 43 balls, along with Sherfane Rutherford.
Siraj had sparked the Border-Gavaskar Trophy to life when he gave Travis Head a send-off in Adelaide last December. Four months on, Siraj was bowling to Head for the first time in T20s, and the battle lasted just five balls. After Head scored two fours off Siraj, the fast bowler struck with his trademark wobble-seam delivery, having him chip a catch to midwicket for 8.
Abhishek Sharma hit four fours before Siraj had him miscuing a catch to mid-on in his third over of the powerplay. It was Siraj’s 100th wicket in the IPL and sixth in the powerplay, the most by a bowler in that phase so far this season, with an economy rate of 6.27.
Siraj then returned in the death to york both Aniket Verma, the last recognised batter for SRH, and Simarjeet Singh, their Impact Player.
With both Head and Abhishek gone early,Rashid Khan, who was coming into this game on the back of figures of 4-0-54-0, could afford to ease himself in. He started fairly well by giving away just 10 runs in his first two overs, but when he erred in length, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Heinrich Klassen dispatched him to the fence. Rashid finished with 4-0-31-0, going wicketless for a third successive game, and with tournament figures of 1 for 143 in 14 overs at an economy rate of 10.21
Left-arm fingerspinner Ravisrinivasan Sai Kishore, on the other hand, showed remarkable control over his length and variations. He claimed the big wicket of Klaasen by knocking him over with a quick dart, which skidded off the pitch, for 27 off 19 balls. Sai Kishore also had Reddy holing out for 31 off 34 balls and finished with 4-0-24-2.
That SRH passed 150 was down to Cummins’ late blows. He was the only SRH batter in the top eight to have a strike rate of over 160.
It appeared like GT had handed a franchise debut to Washington to primarily match his offspin up with SRH’s left-hander heavy top order. But with Siraj dominating the powerplay and Sai Kishore taking care of the middle overs, GT ended up not using his offspin.
Washington then walked out to bat at No. 4 after his childhood friend B Sai Sudarshan and Buttler fell cheaply in successive overs. Washington took advantage of the last over of the powerplay, smoking Simarjeet for two sixes and two fours. It provided a throwback to Washington of 2016, when he opened the batting, alongside Abhinav Mukund, in the TNPL and showed the intent to hit over the top. Just like that, Washington dumped SRH’s Impact Player out of the attack.
Washington continued to attack even after that. When the ambidextrous Kamindu Mendis darted one on the stumps with his right hand, Washington manufactured swinging room and laced him over extra-cover for four. Washington seemed set for a fifty until he holed out one shy of the landmark in the 14th over.
Gill, who had already crossed 50 by that point, finished the job along with Rutherford, who hit an unbeaten 35 off 16 balls.
Brief scores:
Gujarat Titans 153 for 3 in 16.4 overs (Shubman Gill 61*, Washington Sundar 49, Sherfaine Rutherford 35*; Mohammed Shami 2-28, Pat Cumminss 1-26) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 152 for 8 in 20 overs (Abhishek Sharma 18, Ishan Krishan 17, Nitish Kumar Reddy 31, Heinrich Klassen 27, Aniket Verma 18,Pat Cummins 22*; Mohammed Siraj 4-17, Ravisrinivasan Sai Kishore 2-24, Prasidh Krishna 2-25)by seven wickets
[Cricinfo]
Latest News
The sun will be directly overhead Colombo, Awissawella, Talawakelle, Dimbula, Galakumbura and Dambagalla at about 12:12 noon today [07]
On the apparent northward relative motion of the sun, it is going to be directly over the latitudes of Sri Lanka during 05th to 14th of April in this year.
The nearest areas of Sri Lanka over which the sun is overhead today (07th) are Colombo, Awissawella, Talawakelle, Dimbula, Galakumbura and Dambagalla at about 12:12 noon.
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