Pollard hits six sixes in an over as Windies beat Sri Lanka
Coolidge (Antigua): Sri Lanka leg-spinner Akila Dananjaya experienced the precipitous highs and lows of Twenty20 cricket when he claimed a hat trick which included the wicket of West Indies star Chris Gayle for a first-ball duck, then was hit for six sixes in an over b y Keiran Pollard in the first international in Antigua.
The West Indies on Wednesday won the match by four wickets with 41 balls in hand, finishing with 134-6.
Dananjaya became only the 15th player and the fourth Sri Lankan to take a T20 international hat trick when he dismissed Evin Lewis (28), Gayle and Nicholas Pooran (0) with consecutive deliveries in the fourth over.
He had little time to reflect on his new-found fame when it turned to notoriety: in his next over he was hit to all parts of the ground by Pollard, who become only the second player after Yuvraj Singh to hit six sixes in an over in a T20 international and the third player to achieve the feat in all international formats.
Yuvraj did so from England's Stuart Broad in the inaugural T20 World Cup in 2007 and had to wait 14 years for company. Pollard said he thought six sixes was a possibility "after the third one."
"I just had to come out and back myself," he said.
"It was something the team needed. I didn't see the hat trick, I only heard. But I still had to come out and do what the team required at that point in time."
Dananjaya's see-sawing fortunes he was hit for a seventh consecutive six by Jason Holder in his next over and had two catches dropped from his bowling turned the West Indies'' seemingly easy chase for 132 to take a 1-0 lead in the series into a thrilling spectacle.
Sri Lanka managed only 131-9 in its 20 overs after being sent in to bat. It had been 86-3 but fell apart after a short rain break and lost six wickets for 45 runs.
Captain Angelo Mathews (5) fell in the first over after play resumed and Dinesh Chandimal (11) was out three balls later. Thisara Perera (1) fell in the 17th over and Sri Lanka slumped further to 106-6, then 111-7 when Hasaranga de Silva was out for 12.
Two runouts in the final over saw Sri Lanka fall well short of a competitive total.
The West Indies seemed likely to rapidly run down the Sri Lanka total when Lewis hit the last three balls of the first over for six. But Dananjaya's hat trick saw the home side slip from 52-0 to 52-3, losing Gayle to the first ball of his first T20 in two years.
Pollard's barrage in the sixth over lifted the West Indies from 62-4 on the dismissal of Lendl Simmons to 92-4 and again had the home side coasting to victory.
Another twist was in store when de Silva dismissed Pollard (38) and Fabian Allen with consecutive deliveries in the 7th over, denied a hat trick by Dwayne Bravo who defended the next delivery.
The West Indies were 101-6 and were seen home by Bravo and captain Jason Holder, who made an unbeaten 29. Holder hit a six, the 15th of the innings, to take West Indies past Sri Lanka's total.
Pollard’s 6*6
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How lucky are we to have @irbishi in the comm box ?#WivSL #SLvWi #Pollard #KieronPollard https://t.co/BhdliaYRap pic.twitter.com/1jmLXIHiwD
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Pakistan and India, they were going at it, I ended the war: Trump
New York/Pennsylvania (PTI): US President Donald Trump said India and Pakistan “were going at it” and he ended the conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, repeating the claim once again.
Trump has so far repeated the claim nearly 70 times that he stopped the conflict in May between India and Pakistan.
“In 10 months, I ended eight wars, including Kosovo (and) Serbia, Pakistan and India, they were going at it. Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia.… Armenia and Azerbaijan,” Trump said on Tuesday in remarks to his supporters at a rally on the economy in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania.
India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in retaliation for the April 22 Pahalgam attack that killed 26 civilians.
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India and Pakistan reached an understanding on May 10 to end the conflict after four days of intense cross-border drone and missile strikes.
India has consistently denied any third-party intervention in resolving the conflict.
Meanwhile, Trump said Cambodia and Thailand have started fighting again and “tomorrow”, he will make a phone call to those countries.
“Who else could say I'm going to make a phone call and stop a war of two very powerful countries, Thailand and Cambodia. They are going at it. But I’ll do it. So we're making peace through strength. That's what we're doing,” Trump said.
On immigration, Trump said that for the first time in 50 years, “we now have reverse migration, which means more jobs, better wages and higher income for American citizens, not for illegal aliens.”
He said that he has announced a permanent pause on “Third World migration”, including from “hellholes" like Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia and many other countries.
“…Why can't we have some people from Norway, Sweden, just a few. Let's have a few from Denmark. Do you mind sending us a few people? Send us some nice people. Do you mind? But we always take people from Somalia, places that are a disaster, right? Filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime. The only thing they're good at is going after ships.”
Last month, Trump had said he would “permanently pause" migration from “all Third World Countries” and deport foreign nationals who are a “security risk” as his administration intensified its crackdown on immigration in the wake of the killing of a National Guard member by Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal.
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US Citizenship and Immigration Services issued new guidance allowing for “negative, country-specific factors” to be considered when vetting aliens from 19 high-risk countries.
These countries are Afghanistan, Burma, Burundi, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Turkmenistan, Venezuela and Yemen.
These are the same countries that were subject to a travel ban announced by Trump in a proclamation issued in June this year.
The proclamation ‘Restricting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats' restricted and limited the entry of nationals of these countries into the US and applied to both immigrants and nonimmigrants.
