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Harmanpreet, Sciver-Brunt lead Mumbai Indian’s demolition of Delhi Capitals
After a nail-biter slipped through their hands in the last over of the opening night of WPL 2026, defending champions Mumbai Indians bounced back with style and thrashed three-time table-toppers Delhi Capitals with bruising half-centuries from their experienced duo of Nat Sciver-Brunt and Harmanpreet Kaur, and a three-for from their fresh recruit Nicola Carey, Chasing an imposing 196, DC slipped to 33 for 4 in the sixth over and hardly ever looked like bouncing back, eventually falling short by 50 runs.
As is often the case for MI, the heavy lifting with the bat was done by Sciver-Brunt and Harmanpreet, especially in the absence of the injured allrounder Hayley Matthews. After the boundary-laden half-century from Sciver-Brunt and some late sixes from Harmanpreet powered MI close to 200, Carey’s early seam movement knocked over the off stumps of Shafali Verma and Laura Wolvaardt, before also accounting for Marizanne Kapp. From 33 for 4, DC stuttered to 86 for 6 as Amelia Kerr also chipped in with an economical spell and three wickets that rolled over DC for 145.
For the second game in a row, MI’s openers failed: Kerr fell for a duck while Gunalan Kamalini struggled to 16 off 19. After a scratchy 4 off 15 on Friday night in the season opener, Kerr edged her first legal delivery – an outswinger from Chinelle Henry – behind, as Lizelle Lee completed a diving catch on her second attempt. Kamalini also handed a diving catch to Lee, soon after she smashed Nandani Sharma for consecutive fours down the ground, but the debutant’s riposte earned her a maiden WPL wicket with Kamalini’s thick outside edge.
Sciver-Brunt then led MI’s innings and looked in top form, smashing three fours in her first four balls to different corners of the ground. She collected another pair of consecutive fours, again going after Henry, and took MI to 43 for 1 in the powerplay. While Sciver-Brunt went about finding the boundaries against the spinners too for a 32-ball fifty, Harmanpreet took her time to reach 15 off 17 before taking off.
The Harmanpreet act started when she dispatched Henry for six over long-on. She followed it with her trademark loft over the covers for four, to take MI past 100 at the end of the 13th over. Sciver-Brunt then outfoxed Minnu Mani with late adjustments for three fours in the next over, which went for 14, and even though the England batter was soon caught for 70 at cover, MI were set for a strong finish on 127 for 3 after 15.
Harmanpreet was not going after the bowlers by herself, however. She found a hard-hitting partner in Carey, who reverse-pulled for one of her four fours during her 21 off 12. But it was Harmanpreet’s clean striking that left the new DC captain Jemimah Rodrigues sweating, as the experienced MI leader played with the field, especially in the last over off Shree Charani. She hit four back-to-back fours to help MI collect 53 runs in the last four overs.
With Meg Lanning – the WPL’s second-highest scorer – released before the auction, DC had big shoes to fill at the top of the order. It didn’t happen on Saturday, at least, as Lee fell for 10 on her WPL debut.
Shafali and Wolvaardt then saw their off stumps pegged back as Carey seamed the ball into them, in the space of three balls in the fifth over. When Rodrigues fell to a one-handed stunner from Kamalini behind the stumps off Shabnim Ismail, DC had lost four wickets in the powerplay for the first time in the WPL.
DC still had hope with depth in their line-up, but when Kapp was also sent back by Carey, DC needed a stiff 150 runs from 78 balls. Chinelle Henry’s hitting from No. 7 was the only silver lining for DC. Her penchant for boundaries belied DC’s score as she went after the inexperienced Triveni Vasishta – on WPL debut – and even the experienced Kerr. While she collected boundaries, wickets fell at the other end, and the asking rate climbed from over 12 after the halfway mark to nearly 20 by the time four overs were left.
Henry brought up her second WPL fifty in eight innings with a big six over long-on, but once she fell for 56 with the score 133, DC lasted just 11 more balls for 12 runs, before going down in their season opener.
Brief scores:
Mumbai Indians Women 195 for 4 in 20 overs (GunalanKamalini 16, Harmanpreet Kaur 74*, Nat Sciver-Brunt 70, Nicola Carey 21; Chinelle Henry 1-32, Shree Charani 1-45, Nandani Sharma 2-26) beat Delhi Capitals Women 145 in 19 overs (Lizelle Lee 10, Marizanne Kapp 10, Niki Prasad 12, Chinelle Henry 56, Sneh Rana 11, Shree Charani 10*; Shabnim Ismail 1-14, Nat Sciver Brunt 2-29, Amelia Kerr 3-24, Nicola Carey 3-37, Sanskriti Gupta 1-09) by 50 runs
[Cricinfo]
President Donald Trump has named former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to his so-called “Board of Peace”, which is expected to oversee the United States president’s 20-point plan to end Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza.
The White House said on Friday that Blair would be among the board’s founding executive members, alongside Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the US special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff.
The other members are Marc Rowan, the CEO of Apollo Global Management; World Bank Group President Ajay Banga; and Robert Gabriel, a US deputy national security adviser.
The board members “will oversee a defined portfolio critical to Gaza’s stabilization and long-term success”, the White House said, including “governance capacity-building, regional relations, reconstruction, investment attraction, large-scale funding, and capital mobilization “.
Bulgarian diplomat and former senior United Nations official Nickolav Mladenoy will serve as the High Representative for Gaza, according to the statement.
The announcement also named members of a Gaza Executive Board, aimed at supporting governance and services in Gaza. Blair, Kushner and Witkoff were also named to the board, along with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Qatari diplomat Ali Al Thawadi and others.
In addition, the White House said that US Major-General Jasper Jeffers has been appointed as Commander of the International Stabilisation Force for Gaza.
Jeffers, who is the current commander of US special forces, would lead the force in a range of areas, including security operations, delivering humanitarian aid and supporting “comprehensive demilitarization”, the White House said.
While the US has long supported Israel’s demand that Hamas surrender all of its weapons, the Palestinian group has said it wants guarantees before doing so.
The Gaza Executive Board will support the Office of the High Representative and a National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), headed up by Ali Shaath, which is expected to handle day-to-day governance in Gaza in lieu of Hamas.
Shaath is a former Deputy Minister of Transportation for the Palestinian Authority, who is from Khan Younis in Gaza but based in the occupied West Bank.
Hamas had previously said it was ready to abandon its governing duties in the enclave as outlined under the Trump plan.
There was no immediate response from Hamas and other Palestinian political factions to the makeup of the Board of Peace’s executive board.
The White House announcement on Friday comes just days after Witkoff announced the launch of the second phase of the US-brokered plan to end Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 71,000 Palestinians since October 2023.
The US administration has said Trump’s plan is “moving from ceasefire to demilitarization, technocratic governance, and reconstruction”.
But Palestinians have questioned what that will mean in practice, as Israel continues to carry out deadly attacks across the coastal enclave and restrict deliveries of humanitarian aid, in violation of the US-brokered ceasefire deal that came into effect in October.
A 10-year-old girl, a 16-year-old boy and an elderly woman were killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza on Friday, as members of a planned Palestinian technocratic committee sat down for the first time in Cairo to prepare for the rollout of phase two of Trump’s plan.
The participation of Blair, who served as British prime minister from 1997 to 2007, has also been a major point of contention, after his name was floated as a possible candidate for the Board of Peace months ago.
The former United Kingdom Labour Party leader strongly supported the US-led so-called “war on terror” in the early 2000s, and joined then-US President George W Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and another newly-named executive board member, is also a staunch supporter of Israel who previously suggested that Palestinians are incapable of self-governance.
Kushner’s family also has strong ties to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes committed in Gaza.
In 2024, Kushner underscored that Gaza has “very valuable” waterfront property, saying that Israel should “move the people out and then clean it up”.
Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, reporting from Washington, DC, noted that some of the people nominated by Trump will be “members of both the Board of Peace and of the executive board for Gaza”.
“It would appear from this structure outline that the Board of Peace has the overarching responsibility, but dealing with the nuts and bolts on the ground in transition will be the Gaza Executive Board,” Hanna said.
Hanna also noted that Mladenov’s role as the High Representative for Gaza shows that there will be a UN component, considering the Bulgarian diplomat was previously the UN’s top envoy to the region from 2015-2020.
“There is a UN component in this, which is very important, given the differences between the US and the UN in recent years,” Hanna said.
“To have the UN viably involved in the reconstruction of Gaza is utterly essential for these boards, the Board of Peace and the administration board, to have a semblance of credibility,” he added.
Criticism of the board also emerged swiftly.
Ashish Prashar, who worked as an aide to Blair between 2010 and 2012, called for rejecting international trusteeship over Gaza, stating in a post on social media that “the future of Palestine should only be decided by Palestinians”.
“It appears the only qualification for joining the Gaza ‘peace board’ is to have a strong track record of endorsing (and arming) Israel’s project of genocide, apartheid and ethnic cleansing, and criminalising those who oppose it,” Prashar told Al Jazeera in a statement.
“Trump’s Gaza ‘Board of Peace’ was just a pilot project. All states who signed off on it are the ones who paved the way for Trump’s next ‘Boards of Peace’ in Venezuela, Ukraine and any other place the extractionist American regime wants to take next,” he said.
[Aljazeera]
The ICC has decided to send officials to Dhaka this weekend to meet the BCB’s top brass in a bid to resolve the impasse over Bangladesh travelling to India for the T20 World Cup that starts in three weeks.
The ICC’s team is expected to provide the BCB with security details including an independent assessment as part of the discussions. The development comes days after the BCB reiterated its stance of not sending Bangladesh to play in co-hosts India’s venues owing to “security concerns.” So far meetings and discussions have taken place via video conference; this will be the first time the two parties will meet in person.
During the January 13 virtual meeting, the BCB asked the ICC to move Bangladesh, who are placed in Group C, outside India. However, the ICC said it would not tweak the original schedule, with the tournament start date – February 7 – less than a month away. Bangladesh are scheduled to play on that opening day, against West Indies, in Kolkata.
With relations between India and Bangladesh tense in recent times, the BCB sent a letter to ICC on January 4 stating it would not be safe for Bangladesh to travel to India for the World Cup where its four group matches are scheduled. That was in response to the BCCI “authorising” Kolkata Knight Riders to release Bangladesh left arm fast bowler Mustafizur Rahman. No specific reason was given for that decision.
A Risk Assessment report for the World Cup, compiled by an independent security agency, and accessed by ESPNcricinfo, says the threat to teams playing in India is in the moderate-high band but there is “no information to indicate a direct threat against participating teams.”
The ICC shared that security assessment report with the BCB in their last call, which indicated no specific or heightened threat to the Bangladesh cricket team in India. The assessment was shared with the BCB’s security team and concluded there was no overall threat to the side, but pointed to low to moderate risks in some venues and low to nil in others – standard ICC categorisations around the world that do not ordinarily constitute sufficient reason to move games.
[Cricinfo]
Steven Hogan’s century, which included a 186-run stand with Nitesh Samuel, helped Australia brush aside Ireland for an eight wicket win in Windhoek.
After being put in to bat, Ireland openers James West and Freddie Ogillby were off to a slow start, before John James struck to remove West for 11. Sebastian Dijkstra was the next one to go, with Charles Lachmund pinning him in front in the 18th over. That brought Rob O’Brien to the crease, who then slowly rebuilt the innings in Ogilby’s company to put up a 43-run stand.
Offspinner Will Malajczuk, however, denied Ogilby his half-century, having him caught behind for 49 in the 29th over. O’Brien continued to build steadily and found the boundaries occasionally, before departing for a 98-ball 79 in the 49th over, helping push Ireland’s total to 235.
Australia got off to a strong start in the chase, with Malajczuk hitting a four and six in the first over. After he fell in the third over, Samuel and Hogan continued to build towards the target, scoring their half-centuries off 62 balls and 50 balls respectively. Their 100-run stand came up in the 21st over, and Hogan continued to find boundaries, bringing up his ton off 97 balls in the 32nd over.
Medium-pacer Luke Murray provided the breakthrough in the 36th over, having Hogan caught behind for 115. In his 111-ball stay, Hogan hit 11 fours and a six. By then, Australia needed only another 20 runs to win. Ollie Peake then joined Samuel, who finished unbeaten on 77, and together they completed the chase with 62 balls remaining to get Australia off to a rollicking start.
Brief scores:
Australia Under 19s 237 for 2 in 37.2 overs (Steven Hogan 115, Nitesh Samuel 77*; Luke Murray 1-46) beat Ireland Under 19s 235 for 7 in 50 overs (Freddie Ogilby 49, Rob O’Brien 79; Charles Lachmund 3-41) by eight wickets
[Cricinfo]
Trump names Tony Blair, Jared Kushner to Gaza ‘Board of Peace’
The Government is taking steps to regulate early childhood education to ensure quality education while enhancing the professionalism of preschool teachers. — PM
ICC officials to meet BCB in Bangladesh to solve T20 World Cup impasse
U – 19 World Cup: Hogan’s ton helps Australia brush aside Ireland
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U-19 World Cup: Afghanistan stun South Africa
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