Livingstone’s fireworks help Abu Dhabi Knight Riders sink Sharjah Warriorz by 39 runs
Sharjah (PTI): Liam Livingstone lit up the Sharjah Cricket Stadium with a rampant 82-run blitz off 38 deliveries as Abu Dhabi Knight Riders claimed a 39-run win over Sharjah Warriorz in their opening fixture of the World ILT20.
His explosive finish propelled the Knight Riders to 233/4, the second highest total in the League's history.
Livingstone found support from Sherfane Rutherford (45 off 27) through the middle overs, while Alex Hales (32 off 19) and Alishan Sharafu (34 off 23) provided a brisk start at the top of the innings.
Livingstone reserved his fiercest hitting for the final over, when he hammered five sixes, including four in a row, for a record of 33 runs against Dwayne Pretorius.
Adil Rashid was the lone bright spot for the Warriorz, returning figures of 2/31.
Chasing the formidable target, the Warriorz could not find the start they needed. They lost Johnson Charles (10 off 9 balls), Tom Abell (6 off 6) and Tom Kohler-Cadmore (14 off 18) inside the first seven overs with only 56 runs on board.
Tim David (60 off 24) scripted the fightback. David hit Piyush Chawla for three consecutive sixes in the ninth over to keep the home side in the fray. While the wickets of Sikandar Raza (8 off 11) and Dinesh Karthik (5 off 4) tumbled around him, David surged to a rapid fifty in 21 balls, striking six sixes on his way there.
Ajay Kumar put an end to the onslaught, dismissing David in the 13th over to bring the score to 120/6.
With the required run-rate surging to almost 20 runs in the final five overs, the equation proved too steep.
Pretorius (39 off 20 balls) shepherded the tail with a gutsy knock, comprising four fours and two sixes, while Adil Rashid (25 off 11) played a consolatory cameo with three sixes to take down Andre Russell for 25 runs in the penultimate over.
However, the Warriorz finished considerably short at 194/9.
Earlier, Michael Pepper (15 off 9) set the tone for the Knight Riders’ innings with three boundaries in the first over before he was cleaned up by Pretorius in the third over.
Hales and Alishan Sharafu cracked multiple boundaries as Knight Riders finished the powerplay at 58/1.
The partnership was worth 51 runs when Adil Rashid broke through. Rashid first castled Hales in the eighth over and then removed Sharafu to leave the Knight Riders at 88/3 in ten overs.
Livingstone and Rutherford then seized control of the innings with a 95-run stand.
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3 officials of private banks arrested in Gujarat in Rs 2,500 crore cyber fraud; 20 held so far
Rajkot (PTI): Three officials of leading private banks were arrested for their alleged involvement in a Rs 2,500-crore cyber fraud racket in Gujarat's Rajkot district, bringing the number of those held so far in the case to 20, police said on Monday.
Those arrested were identified as Maulik Kamani, a personal manager at Yes Bank in Padadhari; Kalpesh Dangariya, a manager at Axis Bank in Jamnagar; and Anurag Baldha, a personal banker with HDFC Bank, Rajkot (Rural) Superintendent of Police Vijay Gurjar said.
Dangariya and Baldha were previously employed with Yes Bank, he added.
Kamani allegedly assisted the earlier arrested accused in opening and managing suspicious accounts. He also helped bypass banking alerts triggered by high-value transactions by submitting additional documentation to keep accounts active, the SP said.
Kamani was allegedly involved in cash withdrawals that were later routed through hawala channels (illegal money transfer system), supported by digital evidence recovered from his mobile device, he added.
Dangariya is accused of facilitating the opening of fraudulent accounts using fake or misrepresented identities, police said.
He also assisted in structuring documentation, including Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC)-related papers, to prevent transactions from being flagged as suspicious, they said.
On the other hand, Baldha opened new accounts after verification and certification processes as part of the racket, Gurjar informed.
All the three accused are in police custody, while others are in jail under judicial remand, SP said.
So far, police have identified 85 bank accounts linked to the racket with 535 complaints filed on the cyber crime portal.
The total transaction linked to the cyber fraud exceeds Rs 2,500 crore, police said.
The earlier fraud amount was pegged by police at Rs 1,500 crore.
