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Pakistan bat vs unchanged England with Afridi back
Pakistan have recalled Shaheen Shah Afridi for their Super Eight fixture against England in Pallekle at the expense of Faheem Ashraf, and will bat first after Salman Agha won the toss on a fresh pitch.
Afridi’s nine overs at the T20 World Cup have cost 101 runs and he has been left out for consecutive matches after Pakistan’s heavy defeat to India in Colombo, including their no-result against New Zealand to start the Super Eight stage. But he has been recalled to face England, perhaps due to their top order’s perceived vulnerability against left-arm seam.
Ashraf rescued Pakistan in their opening group-stage match against the Netherlands, hitting 29 not out off 11 balls to secure a three-wicket win. But he has only bowled two overs in the tournament and has been batting down the order.
“It looks like a good pitch,” Agha said at the toss. “We want to put up an above-par score and defend that total.”
England will qualify for the semi-finals if they win either of their remaining Super Eight fixtures, but Brook said that he would rather get the job done this evening than face a must-win match against New Zealand on Friday. “That would be lovely, wouldn’t it? But you never know in T20 cricket, it’s such a fickle game,” he said.
Brook said that he would have chosen to bat first if he had won the toss, but expects a better surface than the one that England played on at Pallekele two days ago in their low-scoring win over Sri Lanka. “Hopefully, it’s going to be a little bit better,” he said. “We haven’t had our perfect game yet. Hopefully, it’s just around the corner.”
England have picked the same team for the fifth consecutive match at this World Cup, and have carded their batting line-up in the same order despite some calls for Brook to be promoted from No. 5.
The fixture is a rematch of the 2022 T20 World Cup final, which England won by five wickets at the MCG, and there are nine survivors across the two teams.
England: Phil Salt, Jos Buttler (wk), Jacob Bethell, Tom Banton, Harry Brook (capt), Sam Curran, Will Jacks, Jamie Overton, Liam Dawson, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid.
Pakistan: Sahibzada Farhan, Saim Ayub, Salman Agha (capt), Babar Azam, Fakhar Zaman, Shadab Khan, Usman Khan (wk), Mohammad Nawaz, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Salman Mirza, Usman Tariq.
(Cricinfo)
During an operation conducted in the dark hours of 11 Mar 26, the Sri Lanka Navy seized an Indian fishing boat and apprehended 02 Indian fishermen while they were poaching in Sri Lankan waters, in the sea area North of Mannar.
The North Central Naval Command spotted a group of Indian fishing boats engaging in illegal fishing, trespassing into Sri Lankan waters. In response, naval craft of the North Central Naval Command were deployed to drive away those Indian fishing boats from island waters off Mannar.
The seized boat (01) and Indian fishermen (02) were handed over to the Fisheries Inspector of Kilinochchi for onward legal proceedings.
The bodies of 84 Iranian sailors killed in a torpedo attack by a US submarine last week in the Indian Ocean are due to be flown home on Friday, Sri Lanka’s defence ministry has said.
The seamen were among 130 thought to be aboard the Iranian warship, the Iris Dena, when it was sunk on 4 March about 40km (25 miles) from Sri Lanka’s southern coastline.
A police escort transferred bodies to Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport on Friday morning for the repatriation to Iran, after they were stored in two freezers at Galle National Hospital.
Sri Lanka said 32 sailors rescued by its navy after the torpedo attack “will remain in Sri Lanka”, according to news agency AFP.
A magistrate in the Sri Lankan city of Galle ordered that the 84 bodies should be released to the Iranian embassy.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said shortly after the sinking that the Iranian warship had died a “quiet death”.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the US had “perpetrated an atrocity at sea, 2,000 miles away from Iran’s shores”, adding that “the US will come to bitterly regret precedent it has set”.
Video released by the US Department of Defense after the incident showed a ship being struck, causing the stern to rise up before exploding.
The Iris Dena had been returning from a military exercise hosted by India when it was attacked.
Its sinking in international waters came during the current US-Israeli war with Iran and marked a dramatic widening of the conflict.
Iran has since launched retaliatory strikes across the Middle East – targeting Gulf countries allied with the US.
Four of six members of a US military refueling aircraft’s crew have been confirmed dead after it crashed in western Iraq, US Central Command (Centcom) says.
Rescue efforts continue after the loss of the KC-135, it said, having earlier said neither hostile nor friendly fire were involved in the downing of the aircraft.
The tanker had been involved in ongoing US operations against Iran and was one of two aircraft involved in the incident. The second landed safely.
The Boeing-manufactured aircraft are capable of refueling planes midair and typically play a major role in US military operations. They were used extensively in the first Gulf War to extend the range of fighter jets and bombers.
Centcom said the incident occurred around 14:00 ET (19:00 GMT) on Thursday and that the circumstances of the crash were now under investigation.
The US military command unit added that the identities of the personnel who had been killed were being withheld for 24 hours so their next of kin could be notified.
The KC-135 usually has a crew of at least a pilot, a co-pilot and a boom operator responsible for controlling the refuelling arm of the aircraft.
Centcom earlier described the crash as happening over friendly airspace – but this is a region of Iraq where pro-Iranian militias operate. Iran’s military claimed on state TV that an allied group had targeted the plane with a missile.
Thursday’s crash brings the official US military death toll in the US-Israel war with Iran, which began a fortnight ago, to 11.
The US military has now lost at least four aircraft during the current war.
Earlier this month, three F15s were shot down in “an apparent friendly fire incident” over Kuwait, officials said. All six crew members were able to safely eject.
Boeing manufactured the KC-135 Stratotanker for the US military in the 1950s and early 1960s.
It has been a backbone to the US military’s air refuelling fleet, and allow combat aircraft to carry out longer missions without needing to land.
[BBC]
Navy seizes an Indian fishing boat poaching in Mannar seas
Bodies of 84 Iranian sailors killed in US torpedo strike to be repatriated
Four crew members killed after US refuelling plane crashes in Iraq
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