KARACHI, Pakistan: Pakistan top-order batters continued to prosper as they beat under-strength New Zealand by 26 runs in the third one-day international on Wednesday for an unassailable 3-0 lead in the five-match series.
Opening batter Imam-ul-Haq made 90 off 107 balls and captain Babar Azam scored 54 as the home team raised a total of 287-6 after losing the toss and being asked to bat first.
Cole McConchie’s (64 not out) late counter-attack saw the 31-year-old smash New Zealand’s fastest half-century on ODI debut off 36 balls before the Kiwis were bowled out for 261 in the final over.
New Zealand made a solid start in a bid to keep the series alive when Tom Blundell (65), playing his first game of the series, and Will Young (33) put on 83 runs for the opening-wicket stand. But Young’s run-out in the 16th over saw the middle-order stifled by Pakistan spinners Shadab Khan and Mohammad Nawaz before Blundell too got run out while going for a second run with captain Tom Latham.
Daryl Mitchell, who scored centuries in the first two games, had two lucky escapes before he holed out in the deep after scoring 21 and Mark Chapman, who was the star for New Zealand in the preceding 2-2 drawn T20 series against Pakistan, was clean bowled by Naseem Shah for 13.
Left-arm spinner Nawaz, who dried up runs in the middle overs, injured his left index finger when he tried to hold onto a return catch of Mitchell and was brought to the hospital.
Part-time off-spinner Agha Salman made up for Nawaz’s absence, taking 1-42 off his nine overs as spinners got plenty of assistance off the wicket at the National Stadium.
Fast bowler Mohammad Wasim (2-50), one of the three changes Pakistan made from the last game, had Latham clean bowled as the Black Caps skipper attempted a ramp shot while exposing his stumps.
McConchie struggled against the spinners before taking charge in the final 10 overs against the pace as he smashed two sixes and six boundaries and brought up his half-century with a big six over mid-wicket against Shaheen Shah Afridi (2-53).
Earlier, Imam and Babar combined in a 108-run second wicket stand after Fakhar Zaman fell to Matt Henry (3-54). Fakhar’s two back-to-back centuries had earned Pakistan convincing wins at Rawalpindi before he played across the line and skied a catch to wicketkeeper Blundell.
Henry also broke the century-stand when Babar, who hit his eighth score of 50-plus in the last 11 ODIs, played the fast bowler back onto his stumps while going for an off drive. Imam showed plenty of patience but also fell in similar fashion when Adam Milne (2-56) struck in his return spell and Pakistan lost momentum in the death overs.
Mohammad Rizwan made 32 off 34 balls before he got caught by McConchie off Milne’s full toss before Shadab Khan’s hit a little cameo of 21 off 10 balls and provided a perfect finish by hitting Henry for a six off the final ball.
Karachi will host the remaining ODIs on Friday and Sunday as New Zealand wraps up its white-ball tour.
Pakistan beats New Zealand in 3rd ODI, clinches series
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Pakistan beats New Zealand in 3rd ODI, clinches series
- Opening batter Imam-ul-Haq made 90 off 107 balls and captain Babar Azam scored 54
- Cole McConchie’s (64 not out) late counter-attack saw the 31-year-old smash New Zealand’s fastest half-century on ODI debut off 36 balls
Buttler and Dawson shine as England beat West Indies in T20 opener
- West Indies finished on 167-9, with Romario Shepherd caught on the final ball of the match
DURHAM, England: Former captain Jos Buttler scored a superb 96 off 59 balls, and Liam Dawson took four wickets on his international return, as England beat West Indies by 21 runs in the T20 series opener at Durham’s Riverside ground on Friday.
After making a 3-0 winning start to Harry Brook’s captaincy in the one-dayers, England kept the momentum in the shorter format with an innings of 188-6 after winning the toss and batting first.
West Indies finished on 167-9, with Romario Shepherd caught on the final ball of the match.
Buttler, in at number three with England 16-1 after Ben Duckett was caught by West Indies captain Shai Hope off Shepherd, brought up his half century from 25 balls in the eighth over.
He had earlier smashed three sixes and scooped a four from the first four balls of a devastating sixth over with Alzarri Joseph bowling.
The 34-year-old, who stepped down as white-ball captain last February following England’s group-stage exit from the Champions Trophy, continued to look like a man relieved of a heavy burden as he hit six fours and four sixes.
Needing just four for the century, he was out lbw to Joseph in the penultimate over.
The tally was Buttler’s highest T20 international score on home soil.
West Indies were 33-2 off 5.2 overs after losing Johnson Charles for 18, stumped by Buttler off Dawson, and Hope caught by Duckett, who repaid his own dismissal in like-for-like fashion, for three off debutant Matthew Potts.
England restricted the visitors to 44-2 at the end of the powerplay, compared to 78-1 at the same stage of the home innings.
Evin Lewis hit West Indies top score of 39 off 23 balls, before being caught by Brydon Carse with Jacob Bethell bowling.
Dawson, back in the side at 35 and playing his first England match since 2022, claimed his second and third wickets when Duckett caught Sherfane Rutherford (2) and Roston Chase (24) in quick succession.
The left-arm spinner wrapped up with a fourth wicket, for 20 runs from his four overs, by bowling Rovman Powell as West Indies slipped to 115-6 on a tough night in the north-east.
Bengaluru offer cash help after deadly India cricket stampede
- The euphoria of the vast crowds ended in disaster when 11 fans died in a stampede near the city’s M. Chinnaswamy Stadium
- Most of the dead were young fans aged between 14 and 29 who had gone out just to catch a glimpse of their heroes
BENGALURU: Royal Challengers Bengaluru said Thursday they stood “united” with fans as the Indian Premier League champions announced financial aid to families of those crushed to death during their title celebrations.
Hundreds of thousands had packed the streets in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru on Wednesday to welcome home their hero Virat Kohli and his RCB team-mates after they beat Punjab Kings in a thrilling IPL final.
But the euphoria of the vast crowds ended in disaster when 11 fans died in a stampede near the city’s M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, where the players were parading the trophy.
Most of the dead were young fans aged between 14 and 29 who had gone out just to catch a glimpse of their heroes.
Dozens of abandoned shoes and flip-flops littered the site in the aftermath.
RCB offered financial aid of $11,655 to each family of those killed.
Indian media have widely reported the team earned $2.3 million in prize money alone for taking the title on Wednesday.
“Our fans will always remain at the heart of everything that we do,” RCB said. “We remain united in grief.”
Kohli, who top-scored in the final, said he was “at a loss for words” after celebrations of a dream IPL crown turned to tragedy.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the accident “absolutely heartrending.”
Police used mild force to disperse people outside the stadium, an eyewitness told AFP, but the crowd was “extremely difficult” to control.
Lakshminarayan, who lost his 14-year-old granddaughter in the crush, said his family carried the child in a motor rickshaw to hospital.
He said celebrations should have been delayed to prepare for the widely expected mass crowds.
“There was no need to conduct celebrations the very next day, they should have postponed it to a week and organized it a better way,” he said.
“You should take all precautionary measures, they should have police protection and follow the queue system.”
One of the people injured described to AFP how a “huge crowd” had crushed her.
“They stamped on me,” said the woman, who did not give her name, from a wheelchair.
“I was not able to breathe. I fell unconscious.”
Street food vendor Manoj Kumar mourned the death of his 18-year-old son.
“I wanted him to go to college,” Kumar told the Indian Express newspaper.
“I brought him up with a lot of care. Now he is gone.”
A grieving mother outside a city mortuary said her 22-year-old engineering student son had also died.
“He was crazy about RCB,” she was quoted as saying by the Indian Express.
“He died in an RCB shirt. They danced when RCB won and now he is gone. Can RCB give him back to us?“
Authorities had already called off RCB’s proposed open-top bus victory parade through the streets after anticipating vast crowds.
But organizers pressed ahead with the welcome ceremony and celebrations inside the stadium.
RCB’s social media account posted a video of cheering crowds lining the streets as the players waved back from their team bus on their way to the stadium.
The team said they cut short the celebrations “immediately upon being made aware of the situation.”
Karnataka state chief minister Siddaramaiah said that the stadium had a capacity of “only 35,000 people, but 200,000-300,000 people came.”
UAE’s ‘giant-killing’ of Bangladesh not as unlikely as some might think
- At first sight, the UAE men’s team beating Bangladesh in a 3-match T20 series appears to be an upset. On closer examination, this would be a disservice to the UAE in this format
“Giant-killing” in sport is often associated with cup competitions in soccer, when a team from a lower division beats one placed in a higher division.
A recent example was when Plymouth Argyle, near the foot of the Championship — effectively, the second tier of English football — beat the leaders of the Premier League, Liverpool, in the fourth round of the FA Cup on Feb. 9, 2025. There have been many other legendary examples of giant-killing in soccer. Use of the term to describe similar feats in other sports does not appear to be commonplace.
Perhaps it reflects the different structure of other sports. At its apex, cricket is not structured by divisions. Only 12 teams play Test cricket against each other. In one-day international cricket (ODIs) and T20 international cricket, the International Cricket Council rates teams according to performance. The Test-playing teams occupy the highest-rated positions in the shorter formats by virtue of their greater strength. Outside of World Cup tournaments they rarely play teams rated in the 20 places below them. Therefore, the opportunities for giant-killing would appear to be restricted.
This is not to say that upsets and surprises do not happen. They are part of the natural rhythm of sport. Identifying when they may happen is a challenging task. In Liverpool’s case, the manager selected a team consisting of a number of players who were not normally first choice for league matches. Last week I referred to Zimbabwe’s defeat of Australia in the group stage of the 1983 World Cup at Nottingham. Two members of the Zimbabwean team met several of the Australian team the evening before the match at the hotel where both teams were staying.
The Zimbabweans were surprised to learn of the level of disharmony within the Australian camp and the openness with which it was revealed. This revelation gave them hope and confidence, but it was not until the closing stages of the match that they realised a shock win was possible against an aging Australian team. The part-time players of Zimbabwe triumphed by 13 runs. Afterwards, the Australian captain admitted that “We knew nothing about them at all. There was no video analysis. We said, ‘We’ll find out what they’re like when we get out there on the park’.”
A vastly different environment exists today in which technical analysis of players’ performances in different circumstances are forensically assessed, with plans drawn up to promote, expose and counter them. It is not clear if these have led to upsets of smaller nations beating more powerful ones. At first sight, the UAE men’s team beating Bangladesh in a three-match T20 series between May 17 and 21 might appear to be an upset. On closer examination, this would be a disservice to the UAE in this format.
Prior to the series, Bangladesh were rated ninth in the ICC T20 rankings, compared with 15th for the UAE. The ratings are the result of dividing the total number of points earned by the number of games played. Bangladesh had a rating of 225 prior to the series compared with 181 for the UAE. Although there were only six places separating Bangladesh and the UAE, the reality is that, given the points system of two points for a win and minus two points for a loss, it would take a significant time for the UAE and teams with similar ratings to bridge the gap.
This puts the UAE’s series win into greater perspective. Bangladesh won the first match by 27 runs, the UAE losing its last seven wickets for 33 runs. In the second match, Bangladesh posted 205 for 5 wickets which the UAE chased down with only one delivery remaining for the loss of eight wickets. Muhammad Waseem top scored with 82. The crucial difference in that match was that the UAE’s lower order did not collapse. In the third match, the UAE chased down 163 for the loss of only three wickets, with five deliveries remaining. Alishan Sharafu scored an undefeated 68, assisted by 41 not out from Asif Khan. Earlier, Haider Ali had claimed three wickets for only seven runs.
After the series, Litton Das, Bangladesh’s captain, noted that his team bowled and fielded in the second half of all three matches, the UAE having won the toss and elected to field. He said that dew was a factor in making the ball more difficult to grip and field cleanly, adding that his team’s batting, including his own, had not been consistent enough. This pattern continued in Bangladesh’s next series against Pakistan, which the latter won 3-0. As a result, Bangladesh have dropped one rating place to 10th.
Although the UAE’s rating remained unchanged, the UAE team and their management were understandably delighted with the outcome. Emirates Cricket Board Chairman Nahayan Mabarak Al-Nahayan congratulated the team on their historic series win, saying that “the team had played brilliantly in the whole series, while the support staff put in the hard yards to make the victory possible, another glorious chapter in our cricketing history.” He added that the board will “continue to provide the best possible facilities and exposure to our immensely talented players.”
The UAE have previously beaten Test-playing countries Ireland, New Zealand and Afghanistan, the last two in 2023. Victory over Bangladesh should, as the chairman remarked, “give immense confidence and self-belief to our players and make them take on bigger and more established opponents.” It is in this context that giant-killing acts in cricket may be judged — the defeat of a Test-playing, ICC full member being defeated by an associate nation.
It was certainly a shock when the Netherlands beat South Africa in the group stages of the 2023 World Cup at Dharamsala by 38 runs. In the same competition, Afghanistan beat England by 69 runs. A year later, the US, as joint host nation of the 2024 T20 World Cup, beat Pakistan in a super over, bowled because the match scores were tied. One of the greatest upsets was achieved by Ireland in the 2011 ODI World Cup in Bengaluru. England scored 327 and, in reply, Ireland slumped to 111 for five. Kevin O’Brien then hammered 100 off 50 deliveries to propel Ireland to a sensational three-wicket victory.
Finding a common denominator to explain or forecast upsets remains elusive. In three of the above examples, the defeated full members either looked out of sorts on the day or had broader issues, which affected their performances.
In the case of Ireland, O’Brien produced an innings of brilliance, which occasionally and unexpectedly occurs. In more normal patterns it is possible that, as associate nations improve over time with appropriate developmental support from their national boards, the propensity for giant-killing may increase. This is a possibility for the UAE in T20 cricket rather than ODIs, in which their recent performances have put the team in jeopardy of losing its ODI status.
Casualties in stampede at India cricket celebrations: Indian media
- Broadcasters showed police carrying young children in their arms rushing away from crowds
- India's NDTV broadcaster reported to have left at least 11 people dead
BENGALURU: A stampede broke out as a tightly packed crowd celebrated the sporting win of their home cricket team in the Indian city of Bengaluru, resulting in multiple deaths, local media reported on Wednesday.
AFP could not immediately confirm the death toll, which India's NDTV broadcaster reported to have left at least 11 people dead. The Times of India newspaper reported seven dead.
An AFP photographer saw an intense crush of crowds as a sea of people crammed the streets.
Broadcasters showed police carrying young children in their arms rushing away from crowds, who had seemingly fainted.
One unattended young man was sitting in an ambulance struggling to breathe.
Karnataka state's Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar said he was not able to immediately confirm deaths.
"This is not a controllable crowd," he said, speaking to reporters. "The police were finding it very difficult."
"I apologise to the people of Karnataka and Bengaluru," he said. "We wanted to take a procession, but the crowd was very uncontrollable... the crowd was so much."
Cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League cricket final on Tuesday night.
An AFP reporter said the Bengaluru team had reached the cricket stadium in the city, where celebrations had previously been planned.
Is this the UAE’s most climate-conscious sporting event?
- DP World ILT20 franchise Desert Vipers reduced carbon footprint of cricket match to a very rare low
DUBAI: The Desert Vipers have released a sustainability match report outlining the environmental impact of their headline sustainability fixture, saying it is possibly the lowest-emission professional sporting event ever held in the UAE.
Timed to mark World Environment Day, the report details how the Vipers, a founding team in the DP World International League T20, or ILT20, say they reduced the carbon footprint of a professional cricket match to just 30.86 tonnes of CO2 equivalent, translating per fan to a low 8.6 kg of CO2 equivalent, a rarity in global sport.
“While mega-events like the Paris 2024 Olympics (emitted 1.59 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent) and Euro 2024 (generated 490,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent) understandably carry large footprints due to international travel and scale, the Vipers’ match sets a benchmark in per capita emissions. At 8.6 kg CO2 equivalent per attendee, this may be among the most climate-conscious fan experiences in professional sport,” said Ben Hardy-Jones, head of sustainability and lead author of the report.
Hosted during season 3 of ILT20, the Vipers match featured: 100 percent recycled team and fan kits, made locally; hospitality menus free from red meat, with reduced dairy; biofuel-powered pitch machinery; fan travel emissions limited to under 11 percent of total footprint; water-awareness labelling in hospitality menus; a digital reach of 15.4 million and more than 265,000 engagements, amplifying the sustainability message, with virtually zero additional carbon impact.
“As one of ILT20’s founding franchises, we wanted to show how elite sport can lead on climate action without compromising experience,” said Phil Oliver, Desert Vipers CEO and recent Middle East CEO of the Year at the SPIA Awards. “This wasn’t just about lowering emissions, it was about setting a practical example others can follow.”
Though the match was a finalist at the Gulf Sustainability Awards 2024 in the “most sustainable event” category, the data and design of the match are now serving as a template for the wider sports sector, as the Vipers call on teams, leagues and venues to join them in transforming environmental standards.
“This isn’t a one-off stunt. It’s a model we’re evolving every season,” Hardy-Jones said. “Our report is open-source because we want change across the board, from stadium design to catering decisions. Sport has that power.”
With ILT20 season 4 launching on Dec. 2, the Desert Vipers say that they are planning deeper sustainability initiatives and calling on the global cricket community to help make sport a force for environmental good.
