England beat Australia by 6 wickets in 4th ODI
Chester-le-Street (England), June 22 : England registered their fourth consecutive win in the five-match ODI series against Australia as they outclassed the visitors by six wickets at the Riverside Cricket Ground here on Friday.
The English batsmen continued their red-hot form as they overhauled the 310-run target with ease with 32 balls to spare.
The hosts rode on Jason Roy (101 runs off 83 balls), Jonny Bairstow (79 off 66) and Jos Buttler's (54 not out off 29) knock to reach 314/4 in 44.4 overs.
Earlier opting to bat, opener Shaun Marsh's 106-ball 101, Aaron Finch's 92-ball 100 and a 63-run contribution by Travis Head helped the visitors reach a competitive total.
For England, David Willey scalped 4 for 43 off seven overs while Mark Wood and Adil Rashid bagged two wickets each.
Both the sides will clash for one final time in the series at Manchester on Sunday.
Brief Scores: England 314/4 (Jason Roy 101, Jonny Bairstow 79; Ashton Agar 2/48) beat Australia (Shaun Marsh 101, Aaron Finch 100; David Willey 4/43)
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Never made casteist comment against Modi: Mani Shankar Aiyar
Jaipur (PTI): Former Union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar has rejected allegations that he made casteist remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asserting that his comments were directed at the prime minister's "character" and not his caste.
The bureaucrat-turned-politician also said that he is called the "child of Macaulay" for speaking English, and questioned whether PM Modi knows Tamil.
Speaking on the controversy surrounding his alleged past remarks, Aiyar said he never described PM Modi as belonging to a "low caste".
"I never called him a person of 'neecha jaat' (low caste). I said he was a 'low kind of person', referring to his character. That is completely different," he said at a programme in Jaipur on Saturday evening.
Aiyar said his remarks had been misinterpreted and projected in a way that suggested he was referring to his caste. He claimed that the prime minister portrayed the comment as a caste-based insult because Aiyar is a Brahmin.
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The former minister also referred to the controversy over his alleged remark that a "tea seller cannot become the prime minister". Aiyar said he had never made such a statement and that the claim attributed to him was incorrect.
"I never said that because he is a tea seller, he cannot become the prime minister," Aiyar said, adding that his criticism was instead directed at what he described as Modi's "lack of historical knowledge".
According to Aiyar, he had questioned how a person who, in his view, did not know certain historical facts could be in the role (of prime minister) that Jawaharlal Nehru had.
He said that he had referred to historical points such as the fact that Alexander never reached Pataliputra and that while Nalanda is in India, Taxila is now in Pakistan.
Aiyar said that after making those remarks, he had jokingly added that if Modi wanted to distribute tea after losing the election, arrangements could be made.
"Who called him a tea seller? Modi himself said he was a tea seller," Aiyar said.
He also raised doubts about Modi's assertion that he sold tea at a railway platform in his hometown Vadnagar, claiming that the town did not have a railway platform until 1973.
Aiyar alleged that such claims and what he described as "misleading narratives" played a role in Modi's rise to the post of prime minister.
He alleged that remarks made about Muslims have contributed to communal polarisation in the country.
