India beat West Indies by 125 runs to inch closer to World Cup semifinal
Manchester, Jun 27: Indian bowlers led by the deadly Mohammed Shami produced yet another splendid performance to put their team on the cusp of a semi-final berth with a 125-run rout of the West Indies in their sixth World Cup encounter here Thursday.
With 11 points, India are now almost through and another win in their next three games will seal their position in the top four as West Indies were knocked out with two games remaining.
India scored 268 for 7, riding on half-centuries by Virat Kohli (72 off 82 balls) and Mahendra Singh Dhoni (56 off 61 balls) and it turned out to be good enough as West Indies were shot out for 124 in only 34.2 overs.
In two successive matches now, the bowlers have more than covered up for a mediocre show from the batsmen, save skipper Kohli.
Shami (4/16 in 6.2 overs) was at his best in the first spell as he first bounced Chris Gayle out and then bowled an off-cutter to remove Shai Hope.
In his second spell, he got Shimron Hetmyer while new ball partner Jasprit Bumrah (2/9 in 6 overs) was fast and accurate getting two wickets of successive deliveries.
Kuldeep Yadav (1/35 in 9 overs) and Yuzvendra Chahal (2/39 in 7 overs) were too hot for the Caribbean batsmen on a track, where run scoring became increasingly difficult with passage of time.
The last seven wickets fell for 63 runs in a space of 14 overs which indicated the Caribbean plight.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar with his incisive swing bowling has always been Chris Gayle's (6 off 19 balls) nemesis but it was in-form Shami, who drew the first blood with a short ball that climbed on the big man and the mistimed pull was taken by Kedar Jadhav, running sideways from his mid-on position.
Hope, West Indies' next big hope, got one from Shami that came in breaching his defence.
Sunil Ambris (31, 40 balls) and Nicholas Pooran (28 off 50 balls) steadied the ship with a 55-run stand before both were dismissed in quick succession.
Hardik Pandya trapped Ambris plumb in-front before Pooran mistimed a lofted shot to Shami in the deep.
The skipper Jason Holder then played a rank bad shot off Chahal as West Indies were knocked out of the contest at the halfway stage, reeling at 98 for five.
When India batted, Dhoni scratched around for the better part of his innings before exploding in the final over to take India to 268 for 7 on a track that look good for batting.
There has been a lot of talk about Dhoni's failure to rotate the strike and Thursday's batting effort on another dry and slow track will only amplify the criticism before he got 16 in the final over to finish on 56 off 61 deliveries with three fours and two sixes.
More than his strike-rate, his percentage of dot balls remains a concern for India.
If India played 152 dot balls against Afghanistan, the run-less delivery count was 163 in this game.
It was Pandya, whose 46 off 38 balls took India past 250-run mark after skipper Kohli scored his fourth half-century.
The middle-order looked jittery again with skipper Kohli not getting enough support from the other batsmen.
In fact, Dhoni's rustiness rubbed off a bit on the Indian captain, who ultimately gifted his wicket to his opposite number.
Kohli hit eight boundaries with stand-out shot being a lofted drive over covers off Oshane Thomas.
Veteran Kemar Roach (3/36) bowled fast and fuller length deliveries using the off-cutters to good effect while skipper Holder (2/33 in 10 overs) was economical, troubling the batsmen with back of the length deliveries.
Left-arm spinner Fabian Allen (0/52 in 10 overs) didn't get any wicket but a crucial aspect of his spell was the last five overs in which he gave away only 15 runs.
This was another left-arm spinner after Mitchell Santner and Shakib Al Hasan, who has now troubled Dhoni with his wicket-to-wicket bowling.
When Holder and Roach bowled fast and back of length, the former India captain found it difficult to manoeuvre the bowling but the final score turned out to be much above par.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
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.
