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IPL 2025: Dayal trumps Chennai Super Kings in last over again to take Royal Challengers Bengaluru to the top
Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) outgunned Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at the Chinnaswamy yet again, defending 213 on a flat pitch in a wildly see-sawing classic.
It came down to Yash Dayal vs MS Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja once again. In 2024, the left-arm seamer had bested Dhoni and put RCB in the playoffs. A year on, he denied Dhoni and CSK once again, defending 14 off the last over with a dew-slicked ball. Dayal this time put RCB on top of the IPL 2025 points table, with 16 points and a step closer to the playoffs.
CSK were left needing 35 off the last three overs with Jadeja, who was batting with attacking intent that was missing earlier in the season, and Dhoni in the middle. It was anybody’s game, but Suvash Sharma tipped it RCB’s way with an 18th over that went for only six runs.
It then swung CSK’s way when Virat Kohli dropped a regular catch – of Jadeja – at long-on and saw the first ball of the 19th over go through him to the boundary. Dhoni soon scythed a legcutter from Bhuvneshwar Kumar over cover for six, and followed with a single to make it 15 required off the last over.
Dayal’s plan in the final over was to shut Dhoni and Jadeja down with yorkers. With dew around, he was not able to nail his yorkers, but his low full tosses were still hard to put away, leading two singles and Dhoni’s wicket off the third ball. His fourth full toss in a row ended up going over Shivam Dube’s waist and well beyond the midwicket boundary for six, but Dayal didn’t veer away from his original plan when CSK needed six off three with a free hit in hand. With five needed off two, Dayal bowled a near yorker and Jadeja could only inside-edge it onto his pad for a single. Dube couldn’t get the last ball away to the boundary as Dayal pulled off another heist at the Chinnaswamy, sending the crowd into raptures.
Jacob Bethell and Kohli had laid the base for RCB’s win by adding 71 for 0, their highest powerplay score at home this season. Romairo Shephed then launched from there, muscling a 14-ball half-century, the joint second fastest in IPL history.
Bethell might not have even played had Phil Salt recovered from his illness, which had kept him out of RCB’s previous game as well. Bethell dashed out of the blocks on Saturday, picking off Khaleel Ahmed for three successive fours in the opening over. He went on to score three more fours and two sixes in the powerplay.
He was the first to bring up his fifty, off 28 balls, in his second IPL innings after getting a life on 27 when Matheesha Pathirana collided with Jadeja, grassing the catch. After having recovered from that blow, Pathirana had Bethell holing out for 55, with Dewald Brevis pulling off a screamer at deep square leg.
As for Kohli, he went onto raise his own fifty off 29 balls. It was his seventh half-century in 11 innings this season. He looked good for a whole lot more until Sam Curran had him popping a catch to point with a slower bouncer for 62 off 33 balls.
Shepherd walked out to bat when RCB were 157 for 5 with 14 balls left in the innings. After the big opening stand, they ran out of gas in the middle – between overs 11 and 18 they had managed only 45 runs for four wickets.
Shepherd then helped RCB plunder 54 off the last two overs, the most scored off the 19th and 20th overs in an IPL innings. In the 19th over, he smoked Khaleel for four sixes and two fours which cost CSK 33 runs. In the next over, he took Pathirana for two fours and two sixes to give RCB a blockbuster finish.
Fittingly, Shepherd stormed to his fifty by launching a six into the top tier off the final ball of the innings.
The joy, however, was short-lived for RCB as Ayush Mhatre dominated the powerplay in the chase. He claimed 39 of the 58 runs CSK scored in the first six, including a sequence of 4, 4, 4, 6,4, 4 in a 26-run over bowled by Bhuvneshwar. The pick of the sequence was a dabbed four between point and short third.
Krunal Pandya snared Shaik Rasheed for 14 and Lungi Ngidi, who got a game in place of Josh Hazlewood, dragged CSK back further when he had No. 3 Sam Curran top-edging a catch to the keeper for a run-a-ball 5.
Mhatre, 17, CSK’s youngest-ever player, then combined with Jadeja for a rollicking 114-run partnership off 64 balls. The stand ended when Ngidi tricked Mhatre with a slower ball, denying him the chance to become the second-youngest centurion in the IPL after his Under-19 opening partner Vaibhav Suryavanshi. He was dismissed for 94 off 48 balls.
Jadeja, though, continued to bat with a refreshingly positive approach, especially against spin. He faced only one dot ball out of 16 balls from Krunal and Suyash.
Brevis, though, was dismissed in a slightly contentious fashion. He was given out lbw but the ball was projected to slide down the leg side. The umpire’s finger had gone up midway through Brevis and Jadeja crossing over for an attempted leg-bye. The two batters then decided to talk it out and by the time Brevis had called for a review, the 15-second time limit had elapsed. In the end, CSK were left with another case of what might have been.
Brief scores:
Royal Challengers Bengaluru 213 for 5 in 20 overs (Virat Kohli 62, Jacob Bethell 55, Romairo Shepherd 53*, Devdutt Padikkal 17, Rajat Patidar 11; Noor Ahmad 1-26, Sam Curran Matheesha Pathirana 3-36) beat Chennai Super Kings 211 for 5 in 20 overs (Ayush Mhatre 94, Ravindra Jadeja 77*, Shaik Rasheed 14, MS Dhoni 12; Krunal Pandya 1-24, Lungi Ngidi 3-30) by two runs
Matheesha Pathirana struck thrice in his first three overs [Cricinfo]
[Cricinfo]
European leaders, including in France and Germany, have announced they are working on a plan in the event the United States follows through on its threat to take over Greenland as tensions soar.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told France Inter radio on Wednesday that while nations want to act if the US moves to seize Greenland from an ally, Denmark, they want to do so “together with our European partners”.
“I myself was on the phone with the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio yesterday. He discarded the idea that what just happened in Venezuela could happen in Greenland,” Barrot said.
On Saturday, the United States – using fighter jets, attack helicopters, and special forces – abducted Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, bringing him to New York City to be tried for alleged drug trafficking.
US President Donald Trump’s decision to greenlight the abduction of Maduro led to widespread condemnation and fear that Greenland, which the president has previously said should be part of Washington’s security apparatus, could be forcibly taken.
But since then, European allies have rallied behind Greenland’s sovereignty, saying the country belongs to its people.
Johannes Koskinen, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Finland’s parliament, called for the issue to be raised within NATO.
“[Allies should] address whether something needs to be done and whether the United States should be brought into line in the sense that it cannot disregard jointly agreed plans in order to pursue its own power ambitions,” he said.
Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart, Vivian Motzfeldt, requested an urgent meeting with Rubio to discuss the situation.
“We would like to add some nuance to the conversation,” Rasmussen wrote in a social media post. “The shouting match must be replaced by a more sensible dialogue. Now.”
Denmark has warned that any move to take Greenland by force would mean “everything would stop”, including NATO and 80 years of close security links.
Greenland’s government will join a meeting between Rubio and Danish officials next week following renewed US claims on the Arctic island, its foreign minister said on Wednesday.
The European Union will support Greenland and Denmark when needed and will not accept violations of international law no matter where they occur, European Council President Antonio Costa said.
“On Greenland, allow me to be clear: Greenland belongs to its people. Nothing can be decided about Denmark and about Greenland without Denmark or without Greenland,” Costa said in a speech.
“The European Union cannot accept violations of international law – whether in Cyprus, Latin America, Greenland, Ukraine, or Gaza. Europe will remain a firm and unwavering champion of international law and multilateralism.”
Greenland – the world’s largest island, with a population of 57,000 people – is located between Europe and North America. Since 2019, during Trump’s first term, the president has raised the idea of controlling Greenland, saying it would benifit US security.
So far, Trump has not ruled out using force to take the island.
Rubio told reporters on Wednesday that Trump’s intention is to buy Greenland. “That’s always been the president’s intent from the very beginning.”
House US House Speaker Mike Johnson said he hasn’t heard talk of sending the military into Greenland and the US is “looking at diplomatic channels”.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump and his national security team have “actively discussed” the option of buying Greenland.
“He views it in the best interest of the United States to deter Russian and Chinese aggression in the Arctic region. And so that’s why his team is currently talking about what a potential purchase would look like,” Leavitt told reporters.
Neither Leavitt nor Rubio ruled out the use of force. But Leavitt said, “The president’s first option, always, has been diplomacy.”
[Aljazeera]
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Landslide early warnings issued to the Districts of Badulla, Kandy, Matale and Nuwara Eliya
The Landslide Early Warning Center of the National Building Research Organisation [NBRO] has issued landslide early warnings to the districts of Badulla, Kandy, Matale and Nuwara Eliya for the next 24 hours commencing at 1200hrs today [08]
Accordingly
LEVEL II AMBER landslide early warnings have been issued to the Divisional Secretaries Divisions and surrounding areas of Ududumbara in the Kandy District, Wilgamuwa in the Matale District, and Nildandahinna and Walapane in the Nuwara Eliya District.
LEVEL I YELLOW landslide early warnings have been issued to the Divisional Secretaries Divisions and surrounding areas of Meegahakiwula, Welimada, Kandaketiya, Lunugala, Badulla, Passara, Uva Paranagama and Hali_Ela in the Badulla District, Ambanganga Korale in the Matale District, and Mathurata and Hanguranketha in the Nuwara Eliya District.
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