التصنيف: estaql

Who: Pakistan vs England

When: Saturday, November 11, 2pm (08:30 GMT)

Where: Eden Gardens, Kolkata

Pakistan captain Babar Azam has fired back at critics with his side on the verge of World Cup elimination in India.

The hosts’ near neighbours must humiliate the holders, England, at Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Saturday if they are to have any chance of reaching the semifinal stage.

The 29-year-old has come under fire for both his batting and captaincy.

“I have not performed the way I should have in the World Cup, that’s why people are saying that I am under pressure,” he said.

“Over the last two-and-a-half or three years I was the one who was performing for the side and leading the team.

“It seems everyone has an opinion on me – he should be like this, or like that.

“If someone really wants to advise me, I think everyone has my number, but I guess it is easy to give advice on TV.”

Pakistan started the tournament with two wins, against Netherlands and Sri Lanka. A four match losing streak has cost them.

Defeats by India and Australia were manageable. The next two defeats against Afghanistan and South Africa left them in despair.

Only the brilliance of Fakhar’s 126* from 81 balls against New Zealand in their last match has kept them alive in the tournament at this stage.

A dramatic result in the teams’ final group stage match is not out of the question.

England stormed to victory in the 2019 final against New Zealand. But the wave they rode four years ago has sucked them back out to sea in India.

Their 2023 campaign – just two wins and six losses – has been disastrous and Jos Buttler’s side must now win the final group-stage match to qualify for the Champions Trophy.

Pakistan’s biggest opponent will not be the defending champions but the scale of the net run-rate reverse they must produce to progress.

A victory would take them level on points and wins with New Zealand but defeating England by a stunning margin is their only hope of claiming fourth spot.

This means batting first and taking a huge total before skittling England cheaply with a margin for 287-runs or more.

Throughout their cricketing history Pakistan, World Cup winners in 1992, have had a reputation as the team for the improbable – the odds and the statistics are heavily against them this time though.

Their highest total against England is 361 at Southampton in 2019.

If they were to replicate that then they would need to bowl the English out for 74 or fewer.

“It’s not like this matter is not in the back of the mind. It’s in our mind and we will try to do it,” said Azam.

“But we can’t just go in and start firing blindly – we want that but with proper planning, how we want to play the first 10 overs, then the next 20 – how we have to achieve that target.

“There are a lot of things in this, like partnerships, which player will stay in the pitch for how long.

“We can do this and we have planned for this.”

England are already licking their wounds.

Their Test captain, Ben Stokes, needs surgery on his knee but has put off returning home to help the struggling side.

Buttler replaced Eoin Morgan as white-ball captain in 2022 and he, like Azam, has faced criticism for team and toss selection in India.

Champions Trophy qualification will be scant reward, or indeed respite, but it is at least a motivation for a side in desperate need of focus.

“It’s great to be heading there with something on the line,” Buttler said of the match in Kolkata.

“We’re not playing for what we wanted to be playing for, but it’s a really vital match for us in the grand scheme of things.”

Head-to-head:

The teams have faced each other 88 times in one-day internationals.

Pakistan have won 32 while England have won 56.

There’s never been a tie – but that wouldn’t be of any use to either now.

England have won the last three encounters in their home series in 2021.

It was a virtual C-team fielded by England due to COVID-19 absentees in the full team and the Lions squad as well.

Pakistan’s last victory was in 2019 at the World Cup.

It was a 14-run win at Trent Bridge, Nottingham.

Pollution-fuelled smog has shrouded major cities across South Asia this week, with businesses and schools forced to close in some areas.

As of midday on Friday, four of the top five cities with the worst air quality in the world were in South Asia, with the only outlier in nearby Indonesia.

Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bangladesh have all been blighted by toxic air, which appears to be mostly caused by a combination of pollution and relatively cooler temperatures.

The Air Quality Index (AQI) – a measure developed by government agencies – puts Kolkata in India as the most polluted city in the world, followed by the country’s capital, New Delhi, in second.

Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, ranked as the third most polluted, while Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, was fourth and Nepalese capital Kathmandu was fifth.

The smog has been keenly felt in recent days in Lahore, Pakistan, which had an AQI of 432 on Wednesday, before dropping to 103 on Friday.

Anything over 301 is considered hazardous – the most serious ranking – while a score above 101 is a warning for sensitive groups, such as children, the elderly, those with respiratory conditions and pregnant women.

As a result, schools and markets have been closed in the city of more than 11 million people and the wider Punjab region – home to 110 million in total – from Thursday to Sunday.

Offices, restaurants and businesses, aside from priority services like hospitals and courts, have all shut in a bid to limit movement outside, as ordered in a directive from the provincial government.

But it hasn’t stopped tens of thousands from falling sick, according to officials, as doctors advise the population to wear face masks and stay at home.

Many have reported coughing and breathing problems in Lahore, which was once known as the city of gardens in the 19th century.

Experts say the burning of crop residue at the start of the winter wheat-planting season is a key cause of the pollution.

More generally, growing industrialisation in South Asia in recent decades has fuelled a rise in pollutants emanating from factories and vehicles in densely populated areas.

The problem becomes more severe in cooler months, as a temperature inversion prevents a layer of warm air from rising and traps pollutants closer to the ground.

Smog at the World Cup

In neighbouring India, which is hosting the cricket World Cup, authorities in New Delhi announced they would restrict the use of vehicles for a week from Monday as air quality remained dangerously unsafe despite mitigation efforts.

Cricket players have chosen to remain indoors at times in New Delhi, with Bangladesh’s team cancelling a training session earlier this week and Sri Lanka’s squad wearing masks.

Primary schools were also shut in the capital until Friday.

Overnight rain brought some relief on Friday morning, while air in the financial capital of Mumbai also improved due to showers in nearby coastal areas.

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Scientists are considering seeding clouds in New Delhi – a process that involves spreading substances that can encourage rain – to trigger heavy showers.

Friday’s rain comes two days before the Diwali festival, when many defy a ban on firecrackers, causing a spike in air pollution.

In Nepal, Kathmandu has an AQI of 128, while Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, ranks at 156 – considered “unhealthy” on the index.

The World Health Organisation has repeatedly found air pollution to be the leading risk factor for death and disability in Nepal.

Thousands of Palestinians are streaming onto Gaza’s only highway as they try to flee the combat zone in the north, after Israel announced a window for safe passage.

It comes as Israeli forces struck near several hospitals in Gaza City as the military pushes further into dense urban neighbourhoods.

Parents carried children in their arms while others brought what possessions they could in animal-drawn carts in a line stretching as far as the eye could see.

Follow live: IDF ‘kills 30 Hamas fighters’

The accelerating exodus to the south came as Israel agreed to start implementing a four-hour humanitarian pause each day and to open a second route for people to flee the north, the White House said.

Those fleeing to the south face the prospect of ongoing airstrikes there, and dire humanitarian conditions.

More and more people have been living in and around Shifa Hospital – the largest hospital in Gaza – in the hope that it will be safer than their homes or United Nations shelters in the north, several of which have been hit repeatedly.

Early on Friday, Israel struck the hospital’s courtyard and obstetrics department, according to the head of the Hamas-run media office in Gaza, Salama Maarouf.

The Health Ministry in Gaza later said one person had been killed at Shifa Hospital and several others wounded.

Israel has accused Hamas fighters of hiding in hospitals and using the Shifa Hospital complex as its main command centre, which the militant group and hospital staff deny, saying Israel is creating a pretext to strike it.

More than 10,800 Palestinians have been killed since the hostilities began, according to the Gaza health ministry.

More than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel, mainly in the initial Hamas attack, and more than 30 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground offensive began.

Israel’s military said it killed 19 Hamas militants overnight – including a company commander and a platoon commander who were involved in the 7 October attack – and also destroyed a shipping container that held some 20 rocket launchers.

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Meanwhile, the head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) said on Friday that more than 100 UN workers had been killed since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

“UNRWA is mourning, Palestinians mourning, Israelis mourning,” Philippe Lazzarini said, reiterating a call for a humanitarian ceasefire.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking on a visit to India, said that “far too many” Palestinians have died and suffered as Israel wages war on Hamas.

He urged Israel to minimise harm to civilians and maximise humanitarian assistance that reaches them.

At least 44 people have died in Kenya and Somalia after heavy flooding struck the East African countries.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement late on Thursday that around 1.6 million people in Somalia could be affected by the downpours.

The floods, which followed heavy rains beginning in early October, have killed at least 29 people in the country and forced more than 300,000 from their homes.

Meanwhile, the Kenya Red Cross said 15 people had died in the country since heavy rains began last Friday.

Somalia’s Disaster Management Agency said a state of emergency was in place on Tuesday.

Hassan Isse, managing director of the Somali Disaster Management Agency (SOMDA), told Reuters: “What is going on today is the worst for decades. It is worse than even the 1997 floods.”

Floods in November that year killed more than 2,000 people, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross’s Africa branch.

OCHA explained the downpours were worsened by the twin climate effects of El Niño and the Indian Ocean Dipole.

Martin Griffiths, the UN’s Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief coordinator, said: “Extreme weather linked to the ongoing El Niño risks further driving up humanitarian needs in already-vulnerable communities in Somalia and many other places.

“We know what the risks are, and we need to get ahead of these looming crises.”

OCHA also said in a Thursday evening update: “More rain is expected in the coming days with the forecast for 8 to 15 November indicating very heavy to extremely heavy rainfall in southern Somalia and wetter than usual conditions in central and southern Somalia.”

In Kenya, the port city of Mombasa and the northeastern counties of Mandera and Wajir were the worst affected in the country.

Peter Murgor, a disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation manager for Kenya’s Red Cross, told Voice of America: “We are informed by the [weather forecaster] that November normally is the peak.”

He added: “If November is the peak and we are just at the beginning of November, chances are… the situation is likely to worsen in the month towards the end, probably seeing a bit more people being displaced, probably seeing a bit more loss of livelihoods.”

In a forecast for the last quarter of the season, the Kenya Meteorological Department warned the country will experience above-average rainfall, driven by warmer sea surface temperatures over the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean.

A British couple died from carbon monoxide poisoning after a pesticide to kill bed bugs was sprayed in the room next door at their hotel in Egypt, a coroner has ruled.

John and Susan Cooper suddenly fell ill while they were staying at the Steigenberger Aqua Magic Hotel in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada in August 2018.

Mr Cooper, 69, and his wife, 63, had been enjoying a “brilliant” holiday until the eighth day of their stay, Preston Coroner’s Court heard.

Around lunchtime on 20 August the room next door to the couple – which had an adjoining locked door, was fumigated with a pesticide known as Lambda, to tackle a bed bug infestation.

The room was then sealed with masking tape around the door.

Hours later, the couple returned to the room for the night, but were both found seriously ill by their daughter the following day.

Mr Cooper was declared dead in their room on 21 August, while Mrs Cooper died in hospital.

The three-day inquest heard that in some countries Lambda is sometimes diluted with another substance, dichloromethane, which causes the body to metabolise or ingest carbon monoxide.

On Friday, Dr James Adeley, senior coroner for Lancashire, ruled the couple died as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning due to inhaling vapour from a pesticide which contained dichloromethane.

‘It should never have been allowed to happen’

Speaking outside the court, Mr and Mrs Cooper’s daughter, Kelly Ormerod, described the “pain and loss” family members have felt in the wake of the tragedy.

“After more than five years of waiting we have finally been given closure today on the cause of mum and dad’s death,” she said.

“No matter what the outcome today brought, nothing would make up for the pain and loss we’ve felt since that day.

“To go on a family holiday full of the joys and excitement, spending quality time together, to then be faced with the heart-rending event that happened, will never be forgotten.

“To this day our family struggle to comprehend what happened. It should never have been allowed to happen.

“The last few years have been the most traumatic and emotional time for all of us involved.

“While time has moved on it’s stood still for our family because of the many unanswered questions we have had.

“There’s now a huge void in our lives and I don’t think we will ever fully come to terms with losing them the way that we did – they were both fit and healthy.”