Bangladesh clinches a T20 series victory over Pakistan for first time
Dhaka (Bangladesh), Jul 22 (AP): Jaker Ali struck a fighting half-century as Bangladesh clinched a T20 series victory over Pakistan for the first time with Tuesday's eight-run win.
Jaker anchored the innings with sustained aggression to hit 55 runs off 48 balls with five sixes, helping Bangladesh recover from a shaky start to post 133 before being all out on a sluggish wicket.
Chasing 134, Pakistan's top six batters were out for single digits before Faheem Ashraf waged a lone battle.
He raised his maiden 50 but was out in the next delivery with his 32 ball-51, leaving his team 13 runs away from a series-leveling victory in the last over.
Ahmed Daniyal (17) hit a four in the first ball of the last over to give Pakistan another glimmer of hope before holing out to mid-wicket on the next ball off Mustafizur Rahman as Pakistan was bowled out for 125 in 19.2 overs.
Bangladesh won the first match of the series by seven wickets.
A pre-match minute's silence was held with both teams and officials wearing black armbands for victims of a plane crash in the Bangladesh capital Monday.
Asked to bat first, Bangladesh slumped to 25-4 with debutant Ahmed Danyal (2-23) and Salman Mirza (2-17), playing his second match tormenting the opponents with tight line and length.
Jaker resisted with the support from Mahedi Hasan as the duo added 53 runs for the fifth wicket, giving Bangladesh a platform.
Left-arm spinner Mohammad Nawaz broke the partnership with the wicket of Mahedi who hit 33 off 25, leaving Bangladesh at 81-5 at 14th over.
Jaker then guided the lower order astutely and raised his third fifty from 46 balls, lofting Abbas Afridi for a six over long-on region.
He was dismissed in the last ball of the innings, top-edging a slower delivery of Afridi who ended with 2-37.
Pacers Shoriful Islam (3-17), Tanzim Hasan (2-23) and offspinner Mahedi Hasan (2-25) kept Pakistan at bay, putting a disciplined bowling.
But Pakistan batters played rash shots, much like the first T20 and found them in precarious 30-6 in 10th over with all six batters being out for single digits.
Fahim Ashraf stood tall against a spirited Bangladesh attack, raising the prospect of an unlikely victory with Khushdil Shah (13) and Abbas Afridi (19) giving him little support.
He brought up his maiden fifty from 31 deliveries, hoicking legspinner Rishad Hossain over long on for a six.
However Rishad (1-42) took the sweet revenge in the next delivery by crashing his stump as Pakistan's chance to win the game was dented.
The third and final match is on Thursday.
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NEET-UG: 2 more held, role of several NTA officers under scanner; CBI focussing on source of leak
New Delhi (PTI): The CBI has arrested two more persons in connection with the NEET (UG) paper-leak case, with the role of several officers of the National Testing Agency (NTA) and other organisations, who had access to the printing press where the papers were printed, coming under the scanner, officials said on Thursday.
The agency has arrested Dhananjay Lokhanda from Ahilyanagar and Manisha Waghmare from Pune and conducted searches at 14 locations across the country in the last 24 hours, they said.
The CBI is focussing on identifying the source of the leak that has caused massive disappointment to lakhs of aspirants eyeing a seat in undergraduate medical courses, which are allotted after the highly-competitive examination, the officials said.
According to the CBI probe so far, the involvement of public servants in the leak cannot be ruled out.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested three individuals from Jaipur -- Mangilal Biwal, Vikas Biwal and Dinesh Biwal -- along with Yash Yadav from Gurugram and Shubham Khairnar from Nashik.
Khairnar was in touch with Yadav and informed him in April that Mangilal Biwal was ready to pay Rs 10-12 lakh for arranging leaked NEET (UG) 2026 questions for his younger son.
Khairnar allegedly provided 500 to 600 questions from the leaked paper to Yadav, the officials said, adding that the questions could have helped score enough marks to get a seat in a reputed medical college.
Mangilal Biwal allegedly procured the paper from Yadav, who was known to his elder son Vikas Biwal from an NEET coaching in Rajasthan's Sikar. The deal between Mangilal Biwal and Yadav was for Rs 10 lakh, if 150 questions from the question bank matched with those in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) paper, the officials said.
Mangilal Biwal shared the paper with his son and further distributed it among relatives.
Yadav also told Vikas Biwal to find additional candidates for the questions to recover some of the money that he had spent on getting those, the officials said.
An analysis of digital devices has given the agency incriminating chats, leaked question papers and other digital evidence. The CBI will subject the devices to a forensic examination to get the deleted data, the officials said.
The federal agency has registered an FIR and formed teams to probe the alleged NEET (UG) paper leak that resulted in the cancellation of the exam held on May 3.
The NEET (UG) 2026 was conducted across 551 Indian cities and at 14 overseas centres. Nearly 23 lakh candidates had registered for the test, which was administered by the NTA at centres across the country.
According to the NTA, information regarding alleged malpractice was received on the evening of May 7, four days after the examination was held. The NTA said the inputs were escalated to central agencies the following morning for "independent verification and necessary action".
The Rajasthan Police's Special Operations Group (SOG) has claimed that a "guess paper" for chemistry, allegedly circulated among students ahead of the examination, had approximately 410 questions, including roughly 120 that appeared in the test.
