Mohammad Shahzad slams record-breaking 74 runs off 16 balls
The second season of the T10 League got off to a sensational start in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Wednesday as Afghanistan's Mohammad Shahzad made T10 cricket history with a super destructive innings of 74 off just 16 deliveries. Shahzad hit eight sixes and six boundaries, setting the record for fastest fifty in the 10-over format, taking his side Rajputs to a 10-wicket victory against the Sindhis with six overs to spare in Sharjah.
Chasing 95 to win, Afghanistan wicket-keeper opened the innings with captain Brendon McCullum and single-handedly decimated Sindhis' bowling attack.
Mohammad Nawaz, Jofra Archer, Thisara Perera and Fawad Ahmed all bowled one over each and went for more than 20 runs.
McCullum, who stitched together an opening stand of 96 runs with Shahzad, scored 21 off just 8 deliveries, was a silent spectator to Shahzad's brilliance on the other end.
Batting first, Shane Watson's Sindhis posted a challenging 94/6 in 10 overs with the help of 20-ball 42 from the skipper. While the Sindhis could easily have piled up a lot more runs on board, none of their batsmen except Watson, managed to reach double-figure mark.
Munaf Patel, who last played in the 2017 IPL and hasn't played competitive cricket since then, was the best bowler for the Rajputs as he took 20/3 in his two overs.
While everyone was expecting it to be a tight chase, Shahzad made it a one-sided affair with an incredible inning, that will go down as one of the best-ever knocks by the Afghan opener.
courtesy : ndtv.com
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Sonia Gandhi, Rahul eyed Rs 2000 cr properties without investing a penny: BJP
New Delhi (PTI): The BJP on Friday dared Congress leaders facing corruption charges to seek a quick and time-bound disposal of cases, as it slammed the party for citing politics as the reason for the ED's action against Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald case.
The ruling BJP kept the heat on the opposition party following the ED's chargesheet against the Gandhis and accused chief ministers from the Congress-ruled states of ploughing public money as advertisement into the weekly newspaper which few read.
Former Union minister Anurag Thakur alleged that the Congress used the newspaper as its ATM, claiming that Gandhis sought to acquire properties worth Rs 2,000 crores of the National Herald without investing a penny from their pocket.
Both Gandhis together owned 76 per cent of the Young Indian company which was, he said, given Rs 50 lakh loan by the Congress.
The company then took over the Associated Journals Limited, which owns the newspaper affiliated to the Congress, in lieu of Rs 90 crore it owed to the opposition party, he said.
Thakur asked if a political party can give a loan.
To a question about the allegation that the ED action was politically motivated, the BJP leader dared Congress leaders facing corruption charges to move courts to seek quick and time-bound trial in the cases against them.
"If they have guts, they should do it," he said, adding that in the "Congress model of corruption" the thieves make a lot of noises.
The National Herald case, he said, has stunned the Congress ecosystem into silence.
Thakur noted Gandhis have moved courts for quashing action against them for many times since a lower court took cognizance of the matter before the Modi government came to power.
The courts gave them no relief except that they are on bail, he said, adding that the judiciary did not intervene in the Enforcement Directorate's probe.
Turning to his home state Himachal Pradesh where the Congress is in power, Thakur accused the party of not fulfilling any of its 10 main promises but spending crores of rupees in advertisement in the National Herald.
"Does any Congress leader or member read it in Himachal," he asked, demanding that people should be given details of money spent by different Congress governments in advertisements in the newspaper, which is available digitally.
The Congress has been organising protests in different parts of the country against the ED action.
