India beat Sri Lanka by seven wickets in their last league match of World Cup
Leeds: A peerless Rohit Sharma's graceful willow continued its day job of breaking world records as India warmed up nicely for their World Cup semi-final, decimating Sri Lanka by seven wickets in their final group league match on Saturday.
The Indian vice-captain (103 off 94 balls) scored an unprecedented fifth hundred in a single World Cup edition as India surpassed the Sri Lankan total of 264/7 in 43.3 overs and finished their league engagement with seven wins.
Ironically enough, whenever Angelo Mathews who also hit a century showed his grit against India, Rohit has inevitably overshadowed him in his inimitable style.
It happened in Mohali in 2017 when his double hundred overpowered Mathews' century. Ditto at Headingley, one of the oldest cradles of English cricket where Matchews' fighting ton became a footnote.
KL Rahul (111 off 118 balls), however, would have no complaints after scoring his maiden World Cup ton as he had the best seat in the house while playing the perfect support cast.
Rohit's artistry was at a different level as he bled the Sri Lankan bowling, especially Lasith Malinga (1/82 in 10 overs) with thousand cuts.
The supple wrists worked overtime, whether caressing the ball through mid-wicket region time and again or bisecting a few between cover and point area.
The languid stance and those extra half second to manoeuvre the balls to any part of the ground with lazy elegance made it a treat for the capacity weekend crowd.
The 14 boundaries and two sixes could be a part of any highlights package with cover driven boundaries and the extra cover driven sixes, that one could rewind and watch a thousand times.
The beauty in Rohit's strokes ensured that people had their eyes transfixed on the on-ground entertainment unlike ICC bigwigs who kept a hawk's eye on disturbing anti-India banners over the Headingley air space.
When Rohit finally got out, he was only 26 runs short of Sachin Tendulkar's highest aggregate (673 runs in 2003 edition) of runs which is up for grabs in the semi-final.
Earlier, Mathews had again turned out to be a thorn in India's flesh with a gutsy hundred after a top-order collapse, guiding Sri Lanka to a respectable 264 for 7.
The former Sri Lanka captain (113 off 128 balls) played a near perfect knock with his back to the wall, to give his team a chance to fight which looked bleak after first hour.
Jasprit Bumrah (3/37 in 10 overs) was fast, accurate and mostly unplayable but Bhuvneshwar Kumar (1/73 in 10 overs) had a forgettable day.
Mathews, who has now scored all his three ODI hundreds against India (Mohali and Ranchi earlier), hit 10 fours and two sixes in his final knock of this competition.
Mathews came in at 53 for 3 and it soon became 55 for 4 when Lahiru Thirimanne (53 off 68 balls) joined him.
The duo added 124 runs for the fifth wicket to bail the team out of the woods. He then had a 74-run stand for the sixth wicket with Dhananjaya de Silva (29 off 36 balls) that helped Sri Lanka get past the 250-run mark.
The 32-year-old Mathews' knock was a treat to watch as it was a perfect example of how to build an innings after a top-order collapse.
Ravindra Jadeja (1/40 in 10 overs) was given respect and only twice he chanced his arms for two maximums.
Kuldeep Yadav (1/58 off 10 overs), after being dropped against Bangladesh, did not show much improvement as he was bowling too full which both Thirimanne and Mathews found easy to negotiate.
Kuldeep, at the fag end of his spell, did get Thirimanne, who tried to hit the left-arm wrist spinner against the spin.
With Mohammed Shami rested, India played with two seamers. While Bhuvneshwar was picked for special treatment by Mathews and Thirimanne, it was Bumrah, who had given his team initial momentum with two dismissals.
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Israel launches first airstrike on Lebanon since ceasefire, accusing Hezbollah of breaching truce
Beirut, Nov 28: The Israeli military on Thursday said its warplanes fired on southern Lebanon after detecting Hezbollah activity at a rocket storage facility, the first Israeli airstrike a day after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took hold.
There was no immediate word on casualties from Israel's aerial attack, which came hours after the Israeli military said it fired on people trying to return to certain areas in southern Lebanon. Israel said they were violating the ceasefire agreement, without providing details. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded.
The back-to-back incidents stirred unease about the agreement, brokered by the United States and France, which includes an initial two-month ceasefire in which Hezbollah members are to withdraw north of the Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. The buffer zone would be patrolled by Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers.
On Thursday, the second day of a ceasefire after more than a year of bloody conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon's state news agency reported that Israeli fire targeted civilians in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details. Israel said it fired artillery in three other locations near the border. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press reporter in northern Israel near the border heard Israeli drones buzzing overhead and the sound of artillery strikes from the Lebanese side.
The Israeli military said in a statement that “several suspects were identified arriving with vehicles to a number of areas in southern Lebanon, breaching the conditions of the ceasefire.” It said troops “opened fire toward them” and would “actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement.”
Israeli officials have said forces will be withdrawn gradually as it ensures that the agreement is being enforced. Israel has warned people not to return to areas where troops are deployed, and says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah if it violates the terms of the truce.
A Lebanese military official said Lebanese troops would gradually deploy in the south as Israeli troops withdraw. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The ceasefire agreement announced late Tuesday ended 14 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that began a day after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza, when the Lebanese Hezbollah group began firing rockets, drones and missiles in solidarity.
Israel retaliated with airstrikes, and the conflict steadily intensified for nearly a year before boiling over into all-out war in mid-September. The war in Gaza is still raging with no end in sight.
More than 3,760 people were killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.
Some 1.2 million people were displaced in Lebanon, and thousands began streaming back to their homes on Wednesday despite warnings from the Lebanese military and the Israeli army to stay out of certain areas. Some 50,000 people were displaced on the Israeli side, but few have returned and the communities near the northern border are still largely deserted.
In Menara, an Israeli community on the border with views into Lebanon, around three quarters of homes are damaged, some with collapsed roofs and burnt-out interiors. A few residents could be seen gathering their belongings on Thursday before leaving again.
