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Wellalage, Asalanka headline Sri Lanka’s spin ambush
On a sluggish surface with sharp turn and variable bounce, Sri Lanka’s spinners led by young Dunith Wellalage made merry to bundle out India for an underwhelming total of 213. The left-arm spinner snared the first five wickets to fall and the part-time spin of Charith Asalanka accounted for four scalps as India’s innings was derailed by the spin choke.
The start was contrastingly different as Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill had gotten India off to another strong start in the first PowerPlay. In hindsight, Sri Lankan captain Dasun Shanaka possibly erred by bowling just two overs of spin in the first ten overs. The overs from the seamers were wayward and it allowed Rohit in particular to get off to a flier. The Indian captain looked in ominous touch and stroked a typically effortlessly six to bring up 10000 ODI runs, thereby becoming the second fastest to achieve the feat in the format.
At 80/0, it seemed like India were cruising towards posting yet another big score in the tournament. Things changed dramatically on the introduction of Wellalage who exploited the surface from the get-go with his disciplined approach. He stuck to the basics and bowled wicket-to-wicket, leaving the rest to the pitch. And the track did respond as he cleaned up Gill with a ripper in his very first over. Virat Kohli fell shortly, chipping a dolly to short mid-wicket while Rohit was undone by a slider that kept very low. From 80/0, they had fallen to 91/3. It was just the beginning.
KL Rahul looked confident after his comeback century in the previous game and started positively. He was probably the only batter who looked comfortable against Wellalage but the latter had the last laugh, forcing Rahul to gift the simplest of return catches. Ishan Kishan never looked in and had a very scratchy innings in the middle. Seeing the amount of turn on a slowing surface, Shanaka brought on more spin. Dhananjaya de Silva got some overs and Asalanka also was given a chance to roll his arm over.
Wellalage duly completed his fifer by producing a peach to sign off his spell, Hardik Pandya the victim. Asalanka followed up the good work with more disciplined bowling as India kept losing wickets. If not for Axar Patel’s cameo at the end and his 27-run last-wicket stand with Mohammed Siraj, India would have fallen well below the 200-run mark. Asalanka had a chance of picking up the second fifer of the game but he wasn’t given a tenth over. Maheesh Theekshana duly picked up the final wicket to close out the innings. There was a slight rain delay after 47 overs but no overs were lost on resumption.
This is the first instance of India losing all their ten wickets in an ODI to spinners.
Brief scores:
India 213 in 49.1 overs (Rohit Sharma 53; Dunith Wellalage 5-40, Charith Asalanka 4-18) vs Sri Lanka
(Cricbuzz)
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More than 360 dead, 1,400 missing in Nepal and Tibet after Himalayan floods
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]
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Unyielding Dinusha, spirited tail hold off India to save Colombo Test
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)
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UAE’s Asif Khan handed 15-month ban for using a banned substance
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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