tag

Jasprit Bumrah made a winning start to his Mumbai Indians captaincy stint on Thursday, as Tilak Varma hit 75 not out off 33 balls helped beat Punjab Kings by six wickets in the IPL.Bumrah stood in for the unavailable duo of Hardik Pandya and Suryakumar Yadav, as Varma starred again for Mumbai, lifting his side from 88-3 to 205-4, and crossing the finish line with a ball to spare. Varma hit six sixes. He had Will Jacks (25 not out) for company at the end. Earlier, Punjab recovered to 200-8 after a middle-order collapse precipitated by Shadul Thakur's 4-39. Azmatullah Omarzai's 38 off 17 balls turned the game around for the Kings, but it did not suffice. Fourth-placed Punjab, struggling to stay afloat in the top four, lost a fifth consecutive game, and must win both their remaining games to make the knockouts. Mumbai are ninth with four wins in 12 games. Put into bat, Punjab made a quick getaway with its openers putting on 50 off 33 balls. Prabhsimran Singh, who has been criticised on social media for being overweight, replied with four sixes and hit 50 off 29 balls. He added 57 off 35 balls with Cooper Connolly (21). Thakur applied the brakes as he picked four wickets in three overs. He had Prabhsimran Singh caught in the 12th over, and bowled skipper Shreyas Iyer two balls later. Punjab did not score a run for six balls as Raj Bawa bowled Connolly. They lost six wickets for 33, crashing to 140-7. Late carnage helped Punjab hit 63 runs in the final three overs and reach 200. Omarzai struck 19 runs off the 18th over, then Bartlett scored 22 and 12 off the final two - the duo hit four sixes between them. Skipper Bumrah took no wickets and conceded 35 runs in his four overs Mumbai started quickly as Ryan Rickelton hit 48 off 23 balls with four sixes. He put on 61 off 39 balls with Rohit Sharma (25). Omarzai struck with the ball, dismissing both Rickelton and later Sherfane Rutherford for 20 after a stand of 61 with Varma. Yuzvendra Chahal bowled a controlled first spell of wrist spin on a slowing Dharamsala wicket, before Varma broke free with 50 off 25 balls. Varma and Jacks put on 56 off 20 balls to secure victory. Brief Scores: Punjab Kings 200/8 in 20 overs [Prabhsimran Singh 57 (32), Azmatullah Omarzai 38 (17); Shardul Thakur 4-39, Deepak Chahar 2-36, Raj Bawa 1-11] lost to Mumbai Indians 205/4 [Tilak Varma 75* (32), Ryan Rickelton 48 (23), Will Jacks 25* (10)] by 6 wickets 

Explosive knocks from opener Priyansh Arya and Cooper Connolly helped top of the table Punjab Kings hammer Lucknow Super Giants by 54 runs to stay unbeaten in the season Sunday. Arya struck 93 off 37 balls and fellow left-hander Connolly hit 87 to power Punjab to this season’s highest total of 254-7 after being invited to bat first in New Chandigarh. In reply, Lucknow managed just 200-5 as Punjab consolidated their top spot in the 10-team table with five wins and one no result in six matches. An early reprieve for Connolly proved costly for Lucknow after skipper Rishabh Pant decided not to review an lbw call in the second over from Mohsin Khan and replays suggested the ball would have hit the stumps. Australia’s Connolly was on four at the time and put on 182 runs for the second wicket with Arya as the two bludgeoned the opposition attack with sixes. Arya reached his second fifty of the season in 19 balls and soon the Lucknow attack had no answers for the batting blitz. Connolly went after Aiden Markram with three straight sixes and Arya finished the over with two more in a 32-run 13th over and Punjab looked at 300. But pace bowler Prince Yadav took down Connolly and Arya fell three balls later in the next over to miss out on a century. Mohsin dismissed skipper Shreyas Iyer for five but Australia’s Marcus Stoinis steered the team to a mammoth total with his 16-ball 29. Mitchell Marsh, who hit 40, and Ayush Badoni (35) handed Lucknow a brisk start and Pant hit 43 but regular wickets and the ever-increasing run rate kept the team behind the chase. Markram hit a valiant 22-ball 42 and despite a few dropped catches from Punjab fielders Lucknow lost their third straight match. BRIEF SCORESPunjab Kings 254 for 7 (Arya 93, Connolly 87, Prince 2-25, Siddharth 2-35) beat Lucknow Super Giants 200 for 5 (Pant 43, Markram 42*, Marsh 40, Jansen 2-37) by 54 runs 

Pakistani authorities have evacuated more than 1mn people from homes in Punjab province this week, officials said Thursday, as the worst flooding there in four decades caused havoc in hundreds of villages and submerged vital grains crops.Torrential monsoon rain and neighbouring India's release of excess water from its dams swelled three rivers that flow into the eastern province, forcing authorities to breach river banks in some places – causing flooding in more than 1,400 villages, Punjab's disaster management authority said.Residents of villages such as Qadirabad were walking through water up to their chests Thursday after the River Chenab overflowed, causing sudden flooding."We spent the whole night awake and frightened," Nadeem Iqbal, 26, a labourer, told Reuters as he waded through the water with one of his children. "Everyone was frightened. Kids cried. Women were worried. We were helpless."Officials say that flooding has been worsened in Punjab – home to half of Pakistan's people and a major producer of wheat, rice and cotton – by the release of water into the three rivers, the Ravi, Sutlej and Chenab, from Indian dams that were full.India, which routinely releases water from dams when they get too full, passed on three flood warnings to its arch rival Pakistan this week, calling them a humanitarian measure.Both countries are battling a heavy monsoon season that has unleashed flash floods.At least 60 people have died this month in hard-hit Indian Kashmir, while Pakistan's death toll since late June stands at 819.At least 12 people have died this week in Punjab province, said Marriyum Aurangzeb, a senior minister in the provincial government.The waters of the Chenab threatened early Thursday to burst through a 3,300’ (1,000m) concrete barrage at Qadirabad that regulates flows, siphoning some of the water into a canal irrigation network.A collapse of the barrage would have inundated two nearby towns.To avert the danger, authorities deliberately blew up part of the riverbank at two places to release water onto nearby land before it reached the barrage, the provincial disaster management authority said.By afternoon, the level was down to 754,966 cusec, having reached nearly 1mn cusec overnight – well over its capacity of 800,000 cusec.A cusec is a flow of volume equivalent to one cubic foot, or 28 cubic litres, every second."We have evaded the threat," a spokesperson for the authority said.Officials said shifting weather patterns were to blame for the floods in Pakistan, which has repeatedly been battered by flooding in recent years.In 2022, unprecedented flash floods caused by historic monsoon rains washed away roads, crops, infrastructure and bridges, killing at least 1,000 people.The head of Pakistan's National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA), Inam Haider Malik, said that for the first time, weather systems coming from the east, south and west had converged over Pakistan this monsoon season.Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal said climate change "is the new normal"."But it isn't unmanageable," he added.On the other side of the India-Pakistan border, Himalayan river levels began to recede after days of downpours and forecasters said they expected the rain to start easing.

Pakistani authorities announced that they evacuated more than 150,000 people from areas along three major rivers in Punjab province after receiving a warning from India about the release of excess water from one of its dams.Pakistani officials explained that recent heavy rains and floods have caused water levels to rise dangerously, while the discharge of water from the Indian side threatens to submerge large parts of Punjab.A spokesperson for Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority indicated that evacuations began before the latest Indian warning and are still ongoing. He pointed out the number includes approximately 35,000 people who left voluntarily following previous warnings, while army forces are participating in the evacuation operations.The three rivers, the Ravi, Sutlej, and Chenab, are experiencing moderate to heavy flooding, amid warnings of further heavy rains in Punjab and Pakistan-administered Kashmir in the coming hours.