India beat West Indies by 6 wickets in first T20 International to take 1-0 lead
Hyderabad: Skipper Virat Kohli stamped his authority with yet another sublime innings of career-best 94 not out as India pulled off their highest successful run chase in a T20 International to beat West Indies by six wickets in the first match here on Friday.
KL Rahul also struck an impressive 62 off just 40 balls to help India chase down the target of 208 with eight balls to spare.
The earlier highest successful run chase for India in a T20I was the 207 against Sri Lanka in Mohali in 2009.
India, thus, took a 1-0 lead in the three-match series. The second T20 International will be played in Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday.
Opening the innings in the absence of injured Shikhar Dhawan, Rahul played fluently to score his seventh T20I fifty, during which he hit five boundaries and four sixes to make a case for himself to be in India's squad for next year's T20 World Cup.
Kohli, who played the second fiddle till Rahul was around, showed his class and opened up his arms to notch up his fifty of 35 balls and guided India to a rather comprehensive win as the home side reached 208 for 4 in 18.4 overs.
Rahul and Kohli shared 100 runs for the second wicket to lay the platform for the victory. Kohli, in the end, remained unbeaten six runs shy of century. He hit six fours and as many sixes from the 50 balls he faced.
Rishabh Pant made 18 off nine deliveries but again threw away his wicket to only make matters difficult for himself.
India, however, made a quiet start to their chase as the first over produced just four runs. But Rahul struck three boundaries off Jason Holder to give impetus to India's chase.
India were dealt a severe blow in the fourth over when Rohit Sharma (8) picked out Shimron Hetmyer at deep midwicket off the bowling of Khary Pierre with India's scoreboard reading 30 in 3.2 overs.
Rahul, however, meant business as he continued his onslaught and struck Sheldon Cotrell and Pierre for two sixes in consecutive overs to take India forward.
Earlier, Shimron Hetmyer struck a quick half-century as West Indies produced a fine batting display to post a challenging 207 for 5.
An aggressive Hetmyer made 56 off 41 balls which was studded with two boundaries and four hits over the fence to hold West Indies from one end after being sent into bat.
He first added 37 runs with Brandon King (31 off 23 balls) and then shared 71 runs with skipper Kieron Pollard (37 off 19 balls) to lay the base for the West Indies total.
The Indians, however, were far from impressive on the field as Washington Sundar and Rohit Sharma dropped a few catches.
Off-spinner Washington Sundar (1/34) leaked runs in the first over before Deepak Chahar (1/56) gave India the breakthrough in the next over, taking the wicket of Lendl Simmons, caught by Rohit Sharma in the first slip.
Evin Lewis (40 off 17) and young King then added 51 runs for the second wicket, during which they played some fearless shots, to take West Indies forward.
Lewis pulled Chahar for two sixes in the fourth over to make his intentions clear. He continued the onslaught and struck comeback man Bhuvneshwar Kumar for a six and a four in consecutive balls. He then smoked off-spinner Sundar over the cover boundary but perished in the next ball, LBW in search of one shot too many.
Young King and Hetmyer then added 37 runs for the third wicket before the former was stumped by Rishabh Pant off Ravindra Jadeja's (1/30) bowling.
Hetmyer, on the other hand, went about his business in a quiet fashion, hitting the bad deliveries out of the park to register his fifth half-century in T20 cricket in 35 balls.
But a double breakthrough by leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal (2/36) in the 18th over put a check on West Indies' scoring rate.
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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