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Allen, Duffy lead rout of Pakistan to seal series win for New Zealand
New Zealand’s fast bowlers crushed Pakistan in swinging conditions at Mount Maunganui and set up a massive 115-run win to help the home side clinch the series 3-1 with a match to spare. After chasing down 205 in Auckland to keep the series alive, Pakistan were all out in 16.2 on Sunday with New Zealand’s four-seam attack accounting for nine of the ten wickets. Jacob Duffy made early inroads, picking up three wickets inside the powerplay to dent Pakistan and they never recovered from the top-order collapse.
Earlier, Finn Allen top-scored with a 20-ball fifty and cameos fromTim Seifert and Michael Bracewell powered New Zealand to 220 for 6. New Zealand made the intent clear from the beginning as they raced to 79 for 1 in the powerplay. Even though there was a slowdown in the middle overs, New Zealand managed to post their second straight 200-plus total in the series, which proved too much for the visitors.
Pakistan’s chase never took off with New Zealand troubling them with swing and seam on offer. Unlike the game in Auckland, Pakistan couldn’t take advantage of the dew factor. The chase began with Will O’Rourke, playing his first match of the series, removing Mohammed Haris with an excellent delivery that nipped back in to disturb his stumps. Duffy then dismissed Hasan Nawaz, centurion from the last match, and captain Salman Agha in the second over to dent Pakistan. Zakary Foulkes, one of the two changes that New Zealand made to the XI, also struck instantly, as he cleaned up Shadab Khan in his first ball with an inswinger.
Eventually, Pakistan lost eight wickets for 56 runs. The game was all but over at the halfway stage of the chase even though the No.7 Abdul Samad fought a lone battle with his 30-ball 44.
Duffy came back for his final over and added one more wicket to his tally to end with 4 for 20 while Foulkes scalped three overall. Duffy is now the highest-wicket taker in the series with 11 wickets from four matches
Tim Seifert continued to give flying starts for New Zealand. He drove the second ball of the innings, a juicy half-volley from Shaheen Afridi, straight down the ground for four and followed it up with a six over long-on off Khushdil Shah in the next over. Abrar Ahmed’s first over, fourth overall, was the expensive one in the powerplay as Seifert smashed 6, 4, 6 in the 19-run over. The team’s fifty came up in 3.5 overs. But Pakistan got the breakthrough immediately as Haris Rauf was brought in for the fifth over with Seifert pulling a short ball to deep midwicket where Khushdil took a stunning low catch. New Zealand ended the powerplay at 79 for 1 – the second-highest powerplay total for any team against Pakistan in men’s T20Is. Seifert made a 22-ball 44.
Allen scored eight off his first six balls, but once the field was spread out, he took charge. Abrar, after his 19-run first over, conceded another 16 runs in his second as Allen hit him for two fours and a six. Allen continued his onslaught, slapping Shadab Khan for two fours and as many sixes in a 23-run 10th over to bring up his fifty off just 19 balls. But he perished the next delivery from Abbas Afridi after miscuing on to mid-off. From 134 for 2, New Zealand slipped to 149 for 5 as Pakistan bowled five boundary-less overs.
Rauf was the only Pakistan bowler to leak fewer than ten runs an over in the fourth T20I, as he returned 3 for 27 from his four overs.
Brief scores:
New Zealand 220 for 6 in 20 overs (Finn Allen 50, Mark Chapman 24, Daryl Mitchell 29, Michael Bracewell 46*, Tim Seifert 44; Abrar Ahmed 2-41, Haris Rauf 3-27, Abbas Afridi 1-38) beat Pakistan 105 all out in 16.2 overs (Irfan Khan 24, Abdul Samad 44; Will O’Rourke 1-29, Jacob Duffy 4-20, Zakary Foulkes 3-25, James Neesham 1-14, Ish Sodhi 1-15) by 115 runs
[Cricinfo]
US President Donald Trump has announced that any country that purchases oil or gas from Venezuela will face a 25-percent tariff in its trade with the United States, starting on April 2.
The latest tariff threat came in a Truth Social post on Monday morning, in which Trump assailed Venezuela for spurring migration to the US. He also criticised its government, led by President Nicolas Maduro.
“Venezuela has been very hostile to the United States and the Freedoms which we espouse,” Trump wrote. “Therefore, any Country that purchases Oil and/or Gas from Venezuela will be forced to pay a Tariff of 25% to the United States on any Trade they do with our Country.”
The tariff appears designed not only to strike a blow against Venezuela but also against China, the US’s main economic rival and the largest consumer of Venezuelan energy products.
Later, at a White House cabinet meeting, Trump said he would also place tariffs on pharmaceuticals, automobiles and Aluminium.
Already, on April 2, US trading partners are bracing for what Trump has termed “reciprocal tariffs” — import duties that seek to match what other countries impose on US products.
“What is so exciting is April 2 is just around the corner. And that’s American liberation day. That’s the day when the rest of the world starts to treat America with respect,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said at the cabinet meeting, echoing sentiments Trump has expressed in the past.
Lutnick added that April 2 would also mark the launch of the External Revenue Service, a new agency whose job will be to collect tariffs and other import taxes.
Critics, however, have pointed out that US Customs and Border Protection — under the Department of Homeland Security — already collects and processes tariffs on behalf of the federal government.
Creating a new agency would also likely require an act of Congress.
[Aljazeera]
People living in coastal areas have been warned to get out of the water and move away from beaches after a strong 6.7 magnitude earthquake struck off New Zealand’s South Island, authorities said.
Residents of the Southland and Fiordland regions should stay away from marine areas as strong and unusual currents may present a danger, the National Emergency Management Agency said after the earthquake on Tuesday.
“People on boats, live-aboards and at marinas should leave their boats/vessels and move onto shore. Do not return to boats unless instructed by officials,” the agency said.
More than 4,700 people felt the quake, government seismic monitor Geonet said, as New Zealand media reported items falling and buildings swaying.
The quake was reported at a depth of 33km (21 miles) about 160km (99 miles) northwest of Snares Islands, the northernmost of New Zealand’s sub-Antarctic islands, Geonet said in an alert.
“We had things fall off shelf. The outdoor wooden table dancing,” a user posted on Facebook, according to the New Zealand Herald newspaper.
The United States Geological Survey said the quake, which was downgraded from an earlier magnitude of 7, happened at a depth of about 10 km (6 miles).
Australia’s national weather bureau said there was no tsunami threat to the mainland, islands or territories.
New Zealand lies on the seismically active “Ring of Fire”, a 40,000km (24,854-mile) arc of volcanoes and ocean trenches girdling much of the Pacific Ocean.
[Aljazeera]
US funding cuts will lead to an additional 2,000 new HIV infections each day and over six million further deaths over the next four years, the UNAids chief has warned.
It would mark a stark reversal in the global fight against HIV, which has seen the number of deaths from the disease decrease from more than two million in 2004 to 600,000 in 2023, the most recent year for which figures are available.
UNAids Executive Director Winnie Byanyima said the US government’s decision to pause foreign aid – which included funding for HIV programmes – was already having devastating consequences.
She called on the US to reverse the cuts immediately, warning women and girls were being hit particularly hard.
US President Donald Trump announced the pause on foreign aid, for an initial 90 days, on his first day in office in January as part of a review into government spending. The majority of the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) programmes have since been terminated.
Many US-financed HIV treatment and prevention programmes received stop work orders, leading to the closure of mother and baby clinics in Africa, and severe shortages of life saving anti-retroviral (ARV) medicines.
Ms Byanyima said she feared a return to the 1990s, when HIV medication was scarcely available in poorer countries, and infections and deaths soared.
The US has for years been the single biggest funder of HIV treatment and prevention, and Ms Byanima thanked Washington for its generosity and humanity.
She added it was “reasonable” for the US “to want to reduce its funding – over time”, but said the “sudden withdrawal of lifesaving support [was] having a devastating impact”.
There has been no sign that Washington is listening to appeals to change course.
Traditional aid donors in Europe also plan funding cuts, and UNAids – the joint UN agency which combats HIV – has had no indication that other countries might step in to fill the gap left by the US.
Speaking in Geneva on Monday, Ms Byanyima described the case of Juliana, a young woman in Kenya living with HIV. She worked for a US-funded programme that supported new mothers to access treatment to ensure their babies did not develop the disease.
With the programme suspended, Ms Byanyima said Juliana was not only out of work but, because she was still breastfeeding her youngest child, she also feared losing the treatment she needed.
Previously, the World Health Organization (WHO) said eight countries – Nigeria, Kenya, Lesotho, South Sudan, Burkina Faso, Mali, Haiti and Ukraine – could soon run out of HIV drugs after the US funding pause.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that disruption to HIV programmes “could undo 20 years of progress”.
In February, South Africa’s leading Aids lobby group, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), warned the country could see a return to when HIV patients struggled to access necessary services for their treatment.
“We can’t afford to die, we can’t afford to go back to those years where we were suffering with access to services, especially for people living with HIV treatment,” said TAC chair Sibongile Tshabalala.
Ms Byanyima also proposed a deal to the Trump administration, offering an opportunity to market a new US-developed ARV to millions of people.
Lenacapavir, made by US company Gilead, is given by injection every six months, with UNAids believing 10 million people could benefit from it.
The profits and jobs resulting from such a deal would be hugely beneficial to the US, Ms Byanyima added.
UNAids is one of a number of UN agencies facing funding cuts.
The UN Refugee Agency has suggested it may have to lose 6,000 jobs, while Unicef has warned that progress to reduce child mortality is threatened, and the World Food Programme has had to cut rations in famine threatened regions.
[BBC]
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