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Sean Baker wins best director
Sean Baker has held off the competition in a hard-to-call contest this year, winning for his dark comedy film Anora, starring Mikey Madison.
We wouldn’t call it a surprise but this was a tough category. And hats off to Baker for pulling it off on a $6m budget, which sounds like a lot of money but is a pittance by Hollywood standards.
Annerie Dercksen’s maiden ODI century – which came off the back of two successive fifty-plus scores and is also the fastest by a South African in the format – headlined South Africa’s consolation win at the women’s tri-series in Colombo.
With South Africa out of contention for Sunday’s final, they put together their most complete performance of the competition and posted their fifth highest score in all ODIs thanks to contributions from the lower order, which ultimately won them the game.
Dercksen arrived at the crease with South Africa on 85 for 5 as offspinner Dewmi Vihanga ripped through their top and middle-order. She consolidated with Nondumiso Shangase before sharing a 112-run sixth-wicket stand off 88 balls with Chloe Tryon, a seventh-wicket record for South Africa, to put them in sight of a big score. Tryon smashed 74 off 51 balls and was part of a 66-run stand off 30 balls with Nadine de Klerk which pushed South Africa over 300 and asked Sri Lanka to complete their highest successful chase.
Sri Lanka have already done that once before against South Africa – when they also chased down a 300-plus total – and were in a good position on 160 for 3 in the 30th over. But Ayabonga Khaka’s double strike, which included the dismissal of Chamari Athapaththu for 52, and a career-best 5 for 34, including a hat-trick by Tryon, ended their chances of another historic win.
Instead, the records were all Dercksen’s after she became only the second batter to score a hundred at No or lower in women’s ODIs and capped off a breakthrough series as a batter.
Dercksen scored her first half-century just two matches ago, at this tournament, and finished as the leading run scorer from the league stage. Her maturity and aggression should see her bat higher up the order in future and rescued South Africa after a start which turned in the wrong direction.
Laura Wolvaardt and Tazmin Brits put on 68 for the first-wicket and were both batting well when Vihanga first struck. She drew Brits forward and took the edge and Hasini Perera took a good, low catch at slip to give Sri Lanka their first. In her next over, Vihanga beat Wolvaardt’s inside-edge and bowled her and in the over after that, had Miane Smit caught slog-sweeping at mid-wicket.
Just when Vihanga may have thought things couldn’t go better, she plucked two more in her next over: Lara Goodall caught at slip and Sinalo Jafta, bowled while giving the charge. Vihanga, at 19 years old and playing in her third ODI, had her first five-for and is the second-highest wicket-taker of the series behind Sneh Rana.
Sri Lanka had the opportunity to run through South Africa from there but Dercksen stood in their way. She hit the third ball she faced over Vihanga’s head for four and there was no looking back. Dercksen favoured the area down the ground, where three of her five sixes were scored, including the one that took her to the century.
Dercksen’s innings was laced with cuts and pulls off the back foot and, unusually for her, a selection of sweeps including a reverse off Athapaththu. She dominated the partnership with Tryon, and scored 77 of the 112 runs they put on and it was only when she was dismissed, in the 44th over, that Tryon took over.
She charged Sugandika Kumari and hit her for six, moved across the crease to send Manudi Nanayakkara over midwicket and then took three sixes off Athapaththu before missing one and being stumped. De Klerk finished unbeaten on 32 off 19 balls and South Africa would have been comfortable with the target they set Sri Lanka, who began well in pursuit.
The opening pair of Hasini Perera and Vishmi Gunaratne put on 52 and it was Tryon’s introduction that separated them. Her second delivery was tossed up, Perera tried to drive and spooned a catch to Dercksen at cover. Four overs later. Tryon switched to around the wicket and had Gunaratne caught at backward point.
Athapaththu was in at No. 4 and gave Tryon a taste of her own medicine when she took 10 runs off her fourth over, including her first six.
Athapaththu and Harshitha Samarickrama’s third-wicket partnership grew to 52 and and they took Sri Lanka to the halfway stage on 124 for 2 but debutant legspinner Seshnie Naidu ended their stand. Samarawickrama tried to hit the first ball of Naidu’s fourth over out of the ground but was caught at mid-off.
Athapaththu brought up a 17th career half-century and kept Sri Lanka in the hunt but Khaka was brought back at a crucial time. In the 30th over, with Sri Lanka needing 158 runs to win, Khaka returned and Athapaththu sliced her to cover to all but end Sri Lanka’s hopes. In her next over, Khaka bowled Nilakshika Silva with the slower ball.
Brief scores:
South Africa Women 315 for 9 (Laura Wolvaardt 33, Tazmin Brits 38, Annerie Dercksen 104, Chloe Tryon 74, Nadine de Klerk 32*; Dewmi Vihanga 5-43, Chamari Athapaththu 2-70) beat Sri Lanka Women 239 in 42.5 overs (Vishmi Gunaratne 24, Harshitha Samarawickreme 33, Chamari Athapaththu 52, Anushka Sanjeewani 43*; Ayabonga Khaka 2-30, Chloe Tryon 5-34) by 76 runs
[Cricinfo]
Vladimir Putin has led Russia’s Victory Day commemorations with a parade in Red Square and heightened security after days of Ukrainian strikes targeting the capital.
China’s Xi Jinping joined Putin as he told thousands of soldiers and more than 20 international leaders that Russia remembered the lessons of World War Two.
Putin used his speech to tie the war to today’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and said all of Russia was behind what he called the “special military operation” – now well into its fourth year.
For the first time, a column of trucks carrying various combat drones took part in the Victory Day parade, apparently because of their widescale use in Ukraine.
A unilateral, three-day ceasefire was announced by Russia to coincide with the lavish 80th anniversary event, which Ukraine rejected as a “theatrical show”.
Kyiv has labelled the truce as a farce, accusing Russia of launching thousands of attacks since it came into force at midnight on Wednesday. Russia says it has observed the ceasefire and accuses Ukraine of hundreds of violations.
In the hours before the ceasefire, Ukrainian drone strikes prompted airport closures and disruption for thousands of air passengers in Russia.
Heavy security and restrictions were in place in the centre of Moscow on Friday as Russia marked the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany.
Putin insisted that Russia “was and will be an indestructible barrier against Nazism, Russophobia, antisemitism”. The Russian leader has repeatedly and falsely referred to Ukraine’s leadership as Nazis.
“Truth and justice are on our side,” he said, insisting that “the “entire country, society and people support the participants” of the Ukraine war.
Russia said 27 world leaders were attending the event.
China’s Xi Jinping had pride of place, sitting alongside Vladimir Putin on the platform in Red Square, and sporting an orange and black St George ribbon, which Russia sees as a symbol of military glory but which has been banned by several neighbouring countries.
Among the soldiers joining the parade were more than 100 Chinese troops as well as contingents from North Korea, Vietnam and Mongolia. Thousands of North Koreans have fought in Ukraine and Putin later made a point of personally greeting some of the soldiers on Red Square.
Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro were among the assembled guests, along with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Robert Fico, Slovakia’s prime minister who is the only European Union leader to travel to Moscow.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas had earlier made clear that leaders of EU member states and countries aspiring to join the union should not take part in the event because of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Serbia is an EU candidate country and Vucic said he expected he would face consequences because of his decision to go.
For Putin, the attendance of China’s Xi on Victory Day is seen as a significant achievement, and he praised the “courageous people of China” as he paid tribute to Russia’s allies in World War Two.
Putin and Xi held two rounds of talks before the parade as well as an informal chat on the war in Ukraine, Chinese reports said.
Joining the parade was a wide variety of Russian military hardware, including Yars missile systems, tanks and armoured personnel carriers. Six Su-25 military jets then flew over Red Square to complete the parade.
Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky had earlier warned that he could not guarantee the safety of anyone attending the event and has urged heads of state not to travel to Moscow.
Mykhailo Samus, a Ukrainian military analyst and director of the New Geopolitics Research Network, told the BBC he believed that Ukraine would forego attacking the parade, largely because of the presence of foreign leaders.
But should Ukraine choose to do so, it would constitute a legitimate military target, Samus said.
During his evening address on Thursday, Zelensky said that Ukraine was “ready for a full ceasefire starting right now”.
“But it must be real,” he said in a video on X. “No missile or drone strikes, no hundreds of assaults on the front.”
He called on Russia to support the ceasefire and “prove their willingness to end the war”.
Ukraine has accused Russia of violating its own truce thousands of times since it was supposed to come into effect on Wednesday night.
On the second day of the truce, Ukraine said there had been nearly 200 clashes along the front line, eighteen Russian air strikes and almost four thousand instances of shelling by Russian troops.
In Prymorske, a village in the Zaporizhzhia region, a woman was reportedly killed after a Russian drone struck her car.
Russia’s defence ministry has said that all groups of Russian forces in Ukraine “completely ceased combat operations and remained on the previously occupied lines and positions”. However, they were reacting in a “mirror-like manner” to violations by Ukrainian forces.
Zelensky has repeatedly dismissed Putin’s proposal as a “game” and called for a longer truce of at least 30 days, something that is supported by Ukraine’s allies in Europe and the US.
He said he had spoken with US President Donald Trump to reiterate his readiness for a “long and lasting peace” and talks “in any format”. He said he had told Trump that a 30-day ceasefire was a “real indicator” of moving towards peace.
Writing on Truth Social on Thursday, the US president reiterated the call for an unconditional ceasefire and warned of further sanctions for any party failing to sign up to it.
(BBC)
(Cricbuzz)
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