Mitchell, Williamson take New Zealand to 152/4 against Pakistan
Sydney(PTI): Daryl Mitchell hit a timely unbeaten fifty to help New Zealand post a decent 152 for four against Pakistan in the first semifinal on a slow SCG pitch here on Wednesday.
Opting to bat, New Zealand batters found the going tough on a used SCG track as they struggled to connect the ball because of the slow nature of the surface.
Mitchell (53 not out off 35) and skipper Kane Williamson (46 off 42) resurrected New Zealand's innings after early jolts to take the last edition's runner-up past the 150-run mark.
Finn Allen got his innings off to a confident start, hitting Shaheen Afridi's (2/24) full delivery down the ground past mid-on for a boundary.
Afridi, however, rapped Allen on the pads in the next delivery and onfield umpire Marius Erasmus took time before raising his finger. But the batter got a reprieve as TV replays showed it was an inside edge on to the pads.
But Afridi got his man in the very next ball with another LBW shout and this time it was dead straight, even though Allen went for an unsuccessful review.
Other opener Devon Conway (21) tried to force the innings with three boundaries but was run out by a direct throw from Shadab Khan at mid-off.
But new man Glenn Phillips lasted just eight balls, top-edging left-arm spinner Mohammad Nawaz straight back to him as New Zealand slumped to 49 for three in eight overs.
Thereafter, Williamson and Mitchell held the innings together and shared 68 runs off 50 balls for the fourth wicket.
While Williamson played the role of anchor, mostly dealing in ones and twos with occasional boundaries in between, Mitchell was at his aggressive best.
The duo brought up their fifty-run stand in just 36 balls but failed to force the pace towards the end as boundaries and sixes were hard to come by.
Williamson fell four short of a half-century, bowled by Afridi in the 17th over with a slower off-cutter as the batter went for a scoop over the keeper's head.
After Williamson's departure, Mitchell kept the Kiwis' innings going and reached his fifty off 32 balls.
With James Neesham (16 not out), Mitchell stitched an unconquered 35 off 22 balls but failed to give the final flourish as Pakistan bowlers made a strong comeback.
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A strong magnitude 6.1 earthquake shakes Indonesia's Java Island, felt in Jakarta
Jakarta, Apr 27: A strong magnitude 6.1 earthquake shook the southern part of Indonesia's main island of Java on Saturday, but there were no immediate reports of injury or significant property damage.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck 102 kilometers (63 miles) south of Banjar city at a depth of 68.3 kilometers (42.4 miles). There was no tsunami warning.
High-rises in the capital Jakarta swayed for around a minute and two-story homes shook strongly in the West Java provincial capital of Bandung and in Jakarta's satellite cities of Depok, Tangerang, Bogor and Bekasi. The quake was also felt in other cities in West Java, Yogyakarta and East Java province, according to Indonesia's Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysical Agency.
The agency warned of possible aftershocks.
Earthquakes are frequent across the sprawling archipelago nation, but they are rarely felt in Jakarta.
Indonesia, a seismically active archipelago of 270 million people, is prone to seismic upheaval because of its location on major geological faults known as the Pacific “Ring of Fire.”
A magnitude 5.6 earthquake in 2022 killed at least 602 people in West Java's Cianjur city. It was the deadliest in Indonesia since a 2018 quake and tsunami in Sulawesi killed more than 4,300 people.
In 2004, an extremely powerful Indian Ocean quake set off a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Indonesia's Aceh province.
