Pujara, rain thwart rampaging Sri Lanka in Kolkata

KOLKATA: India’s top order bulwark Cheteshwar Pujara resisted Sri Lanka’s charge with a gutsy unbeaten 47 before rain returned to wipe out more than two sessions of the second day’s play in the opening test on Friday.

Steady showers had allowed just 11.5 overs on the first day of the three-match series and the heavens opened once more on Friday to initially force an early lunch and then wash out the final two sessions with India reeling on 74 for five.

When play was called off, Pujara, a model of concentration, stood three runs short of a 16th test fifty, a knock he would be proud of considering the conditions at Eden Gardens.

Local favourite Wriddhiman Saha survived some anxious moments to remain six not out at the other end as the visitors continued to plunder wickets between the showers in search of a first test win against their hosts in India.

Sri Lanka’s first change bowler Dasun Shanaka dismissed Ajinkya Rahane and Ravichandran Ashwin, both for four, to compound India’s woes after the hosts had resumed on 17-3 under an overcast sky.

Suranga Lakmal had claimed three wickets on the opening day without conceding a run and the paceman eventually sent down 46 dot balls before Rahane hit a boundary to end the streak.

Shanaka struck in his third over when Rahane chased a wide delivery and nicked a catch to wicketkeeper Niroshan Dickwella.

Next man in Ashwin was hit on the thumb by a rising Lahiru Gamage delivery and needed medical attention, before he also fell victim to a very ordinary shot against Shanaka, slicing a delivery straight to Dimuth Karunaratne at point.

Saha looked tentative as well but Pujara batted with characteristic assuredness at the other end.

On a green track where the ball moved significantly, Pujara came up with a batting masterclass — playing late, close to his body with soft hands and leaving well.

India’s number three was his watchful self against anything outside the off stump and capitalised on the occasional poor delivery, as the nine boundaries in his 102-ball vigil would suggest.

Comments

US drone strike kills leader of Pakistan’s Jamaat-ul-Ahrar militants: spokesman

DERA ISMAIL KHAN: The leader of Pakistani militant group Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, who planned some of the deadliest suicide bombings in Pakistan over the last year, died on Thursday of wounds sustained in a US drone strike in Afghanistan, a spokesman said. “Our leader, Omar Khalid Khorasani, was wounded in one of the recent drone strikes in Afghanistan. He was wounded badly, and today he was martyred,” Asad Mansoor, a Jamaat-ul-Ahrar spokesman, said by telephone.The killing comes ahead of American Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s visit next week and is likely to further ease tensions between the often-wary allies, as Islamabad has been asking Washington for years to target militants who attack inside Pakistan and then hide over the border in Afghanistan. A splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has in the past also backed Middle East-based Islamic St...

India’s bullet train project re-ignites debate on land for ‘public purpose’

MUMBAI: Plans for India’s first bullet train, a $17-billion-dollar project, have sparked a debate on the definition of “public purpose” for land acquisitions which have become increasingly contentious. The 500-km- (310-mile-) long high-speed rail link promises to cut travel time between the financial hub of Mumbai and the industrial city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat state by more than half to under three hours. The project, inaugurated earlier this month, will need about 825 hectares (2,000 acres) of land. The government has said it will complete the line by 2022, even as farmers along the proposed route held protests against giving up their land. They may have little say in the matter, as the state has a legal right to take private property for public purposes. But analysts say the definition of what constitutes public purpose needs revisiting, even for infrastructure projects. “When projects – airports, private colleges, bullet trains – benefit only a small percentage of ...

कुन प्रदेश को अस्थाई राजधानी कहाँ ? प्रदेश प्रमुख को ?

बुधबार ,३ माघ ( काठमाडौँ ) सरकारले आज सात ओटै प्रदेश को अस्थाई मुकाम र प्रदेश प्रमुख तोकेको छ | बुधबार बसेको मन्त्रि परिसद को बैठक ले सात ओटै प्रदेश को अस्थाई मुकाम र प्रदेश प्रमुख तोकेको हो | जसमा प्रदेश १ को बिराटनगर ,२ को जनकपुर ,३ को हेटौडा र ४ को मुकाम पोखरा तोकेको छ | तेस्तै प्रदेश ५ को रुपन्देही ,६ को सुर्खेत तथा ७ को धनगढी तोकिएको छ | पदेश प्रमुख मा प्रदेश १ मा डाक्टर गोविन्द सुब्बा ,२ मा रत्नेस्वोरलाल कायस्थ ,३ मा अनुराधा कोइराला, ४ मा बाबुराम कुँवर, ५ मा उमाकान्त झा ,६ मा दुर्गा प्रसाद खनाल र ७ मा मोहनराज मल्ल लाई निउक्त गर्ने सरकारले निर्णय गरेको छ |

Nepalinews

Search This Blog