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Ervine fights but Rashid puts Afghanistan on brink of series win
Rashid Khan stepped up when Afghanistan needed him to as Zimbabwe find themselves on the brink of losing the second Test and with that, the series as well, to the visitors. Rashid broke the back of the Zimbabwean middle order with a six-wicket haul and if not for Craig Ervine’s fighting half-century, Afghanistan would have already completed formalities by now. However, the Zimbabwean veteran has dragged this series into the final day with his side needing 73 runs for the win – a hard task given they have only two wickets in hand.
Kickstarting the day with a lead of 205, Afghanistan managed to add some vital runs before Blessing Muzarabani got rid of Rashid. However, Ismat Alam kept the home side at bay and managed to bring up a terrific hundred to stun Zimbabwe. His efforts dragged the lead to 277 – a commendable effort considering Afghanistan conceded a first innings lead of 86.
Zimbabwe then made a positive start to the chase with the openers laying an ideal platform with a 43-run stand. But once that partnership was broken, Afghanistan started striking at regular intervals to storm back into the contest. Rashid bagged the big wicket of Ben Curran for 38 before adding two more to his tally to reduce the hosts to 99 for 4. Sikandar Raza then stood firm alongside Ervine to steady the ship as Zimbabwe slowly recovered.
For someone who plays extravagant strokes in the shorter formats, Raza showed commendable application once again in this Test to follow up with his first-innings fifty. His patient 38 turned the tide once again before Rashid did his bit to stun the opposition. Raza hit one straight to cover to get dismissed and his wicket triggered a collapse. Sean Williams missed a slog sweep to get castled and two balls later, Rashid hit the timber again, this time to send Brian Bennett back to the pavilion.
Ervine hardly had time to process the destruction at the other end as Zia-ur-Rehman then added to Zimbabwe’s woes with one more wicket. 157 for 4 in no time became 178 for 8 as Afghanistan inched closer to a memorable win. Ervine then took charge and opened up to find the boundary twice against Rashid before smashing Rehman for a six. Richard Ngarava managed to stay put at the other end as Ervine’s aggressive approach resulted in him getting to his fifty before bad light ended play.
Brief scores:
Zimbabwe 243 & 205/8 (Craig Ervine 53*; Rashid Khan 6/66) need another 73 runs vs Afghanistan 157 & 363
The Island and it’s sister paper Divaina won the awards for the best English language and Sinhala language newspapers at the 2024 Pinacle People’s Awards held at the Taj Samudra Hotel on Monday (06) night.
Furthermore Divaina editor Narada Nissanka was named the Best Editor for the year 2024 and also received the Pinacle Lifetime award as well.
Divaina Sports Editor Susil Jayakody was named the Best Sports Editor for the year 2024 while Divaina Airport Correspondent T K G Kapila wasc named the Best Provincial Correspondent of the year.
Rescuers in India are racing against time to bring out miners trapped inside a flooded coal mine in the north-eastern state of Assam.
Three of the nine men inside were feared dead, Reuters reported, after the state government said rescue teams had spotted some bodies they have been unable to reach.
The men were trapped on Monday morning after water flooded the rat-hole mine, which is a narrow hole dug manually to extract coal.
Despite a ban on such mining in India since 2014, small illegal mines continue to be operational in Assam and other north-eastern states.
Divers, helicopters and engineers have been deployed to help rescue the trapped men and the state and national disaster response forces are also aiding efforts.
On Monday evening, Assam Director General of Police GP Singh had said that authorities were ascertaining the exact number of people trapped.
Reports said more than a dozen miners had managed to escape and initial reports suggested that the “numbers would be in single digits”.
The mine is located in the hilly area of Dima Hasao district.
Senior police official in the district, Mayank Kumar Jha, told Reuters that the area was very “remote” and “difficult to reach”.
Mine-related disasters are not uncommon in India’s northeast.
In December 2018, at least 15 men were trapped in an illegal mine in the neighbouring state of Meghalaya after water from a nearby river flooded it.
Five miners managed to escape but the rescue efforts for the others continued until the first week of March the following year. Only two bodies were recovered.
In January 2024, six workers were killed after a fire broke out in a rat-hole coal mine in Nagaland state.
[BBC]
At least five people have died in a winter storm that has seized a swathe of the US in its icy grip, leading to mass school closures, travel chaos and power cuts.
Seven US states declared emergencies: Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Arkansas.
More than 2,300 flights have been cancelled, with nearly 9,000 delays also reported owing to the extreme weather caused by the polar vortex of icy cold air that usually circles the North Pole.
Over 200,000 people had no power on Monday night across states in the storm’s path, according to Poweroutage.us. Snow and sleet is forecast to continue in much of the north-eastern US on Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).
While the precipitation will then dissipate, cold Arctic air is expected to keep conditions icy across a chunk of the country for several more weeks.
In Washington DC – where lawmakers met on Monday to certify Donald Trump’s win in November’s election – about 5-9in (13-23cm) of snow fell, with up to a foot recorded in parts of nearby Maryland and Virginia.
In front of the Washington Monument, hundreds of local residents gathered at a local park for a snowball fight, a now 15-year-old tradition.
“Just having fun,” one local man told the BBC. “Never done a snowball fight before.”
Former US Olympic skier Clare Egan was found cross-country skiing on the National Mall, the central thoroughfare of the US capital city. She told the Associated Press she had thought “my skiing days were maybe behind me”, after moving to the city.
Washington DC’s weather emergency is declared until the early hours of Tuesday as a result of the system, which was named Winter Storm Blair by the Weather Channel.
Children who had been due to go back to classes on Monday after the winter holiday break were instead enjoying a snow day as school districts closed from Maryland to Kansas.
In other parts of the US, the winter storm brought with it dangerous road conditions. In Missouri, the state’s highway patrol said at least 365 people had crashed on Sunday, leaving dozens injured and at least one dead. In nearby Kansas, one of the worst-hit states, local news reported that two people were killed in a car crash during the storm.
In Houston, Texas, a person was found dead from cold weather in front of a bus stop on Monday morning, authorities said.
In Virginia, where 300 car crashes were reported between midnight and Monday morning, authorities warned local residents to avoid driving in large parts of the state.
At least one motorist was killed, according to local media reports.
Matthew Cappucci, a senior meteorologist at the weather app MyRadar, told the BBC that Kansas City had seen the heaviest snow in 32 years.
Some areas near the Ohio River turned to “skating rinks” in the frigid temperatures, he added.
“The ploughs are getting stuck, the police are getting stuck, everybody’s getting stuck – stay home,” he said.
[BBC]
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