Pakistan has won the Central Asian Volleyball Championship by defeating Turkmenistan in final match.
In the final, Pakistan defeated Turkmenistan 1-3, Pakistan’s winning scores were 25-21, 25-19, 25-20 and 14-25.
Pakistan remained unbeaten in the event, winning 6 matches in a row, the national team won a total of 18 sets and lost 3.
Consultations on 15 Pakistani players for the World Cup T20 scheduled to be held from June 1 to June 29 have been completed.
According to Geo, the Pakistani squad will include five fast bowlers, four all-rounders, three wicket-keepers, two batsmen and a spinner. Haris Rauf is fully fit and will also be included in the World Cup squad.
Babar Azam (captain), Fakhar Zaman, Muhammad Rizwan, Usman Khan, Azam Khan, Imad Wasim, Shadab Khan, Saim Ayub, Muhammad Amir and Iftikhar Ahmed will also be in the squad.
Sources say that Abrar Ahmed, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Naseem Shah, Abbas Afridi will also be in the Pakistan squad while three travel reserves will be Salman Ali Agha, Hasan Ali and Irfan Niazi.
Pakistani mountaineer Shehroze Kashif has shared a two-year old video of a conversation he had with star Indian cricketer Virat Kohli in a pleasant mood in which Kohli expressed his hope to visit Pakistan.
Shehroze shared the video of the 2022 conversation on his Instagram account last night. During the conversation with Shehroze, Virat said, “Now that teams have started coming, hopefully we will also come soon.”
The mountaineer wrote in the caption of his post that he had a video call conversation with Virat Kohli in 2022. He met an Indian citizen in Nepal who said he was a fan.
Shehroze wote, “After listening about the Indian cricket team, he expressed my desire to talk to Kohli, on which the Indian person sent my news link to Kohli and requested to talk.”
He said, “I enjoyed talking to Kohli, the Indian national who talked to me was the physical trainer of the Indian team.”
According to Shehroze Kashif, he thinks that there is no bigger fan of Kohli in Pakistan.
Shehroze is a Pakistani mountaineer who claimed the record of youngest climber in the world to summit the second-highest peak in the world, K2.
India’s tantrums over English players leaving the IPL to play in their home series against Pakistan continue.
Former fast bowler Irfan Pathan is the latest prominent figure to use harsh language against the English cricketers who left the IPL unfinished.
Pathan wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “Either be available for the entire season or don’t come.”
Earlier, former Test cricketer Sunil Gavaskar also showed anger on the cricketers who left the IPL. He criticized the English cricketers and demanded a cut in their salaries and asked that fines should be imposed. In his column, Sunil Gavaskar wrote that because of IPL, they get 10 percent commission which no other league pays, if they are leaving IPL for the series, then the boards and players should be fined.
England’s top cricketers Jonny Bairstow, Sam Curran, Liam Livingstone, Will Jacks, Reece Topley, Jos Buttler, Phil Salt and Moeen Ali, who participated in the IPL, left the league to represent their country against Pakistan.
The four-match series between Pakistan and England will start from May 22, while the finals, including the IPL playoffs, will be played during the same period, which will not include a large number of foreign cricketers.
The schedule of International Cricket Council (ICC) T20 World Cup 2024 warm-up matches has been released, Pakistan will not participate in warm up matches due to the series against England. Four T20 matches between Pakistan and England will be played between May 22 and 30.
New Zealand and England are also not participating in warm up matches.
The warm-up matches of the World Cup will be played between May 27 and June 1. A total of 17 teams will be participating in the World Cup warm-up matches before the event.
Pakistan will leave England for America on June 1, playing its first match in the tournament against America on June 6.
Pakistan will host the West Asia Baseball Cup during the Baseball Federation of Asia meeting.
The executive meeting of the Baseball Federation of Asia was held in China’s Taipei during which Pakistan was confirmed to host the event.
On this occasion, Secretary Pakistan Baseball Federation Fakhar Ali Shah said, “The event is planned to be held in October, the venue and dates for the event will be announced soon.”
Teams from India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq will participate in the event.
Apart from this, the teams of Palestine and Bangladesh will also participate in the event.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) has allotted the second semi-final slot to India even before the start of the T20 World Cup.
According to reports, if the Indian team advances from the group round in the World Cup, it will face the winning team in the second semi-final in Guyana, West Indies. The first semi-final, to be played in Trinidad, will begin at 8:30 am local time, 6 am Indian time.
Many Indian fans might miss the match due to time zone. Keeping in mind the Indian time zone, ICC has also changed the timing of the match so that more people can watch the live match, the second semi-final will start at 10 am local time which will be 8 pm according to Indian time.
In Group A, India will compete against arch-rivals Pakistan on June 9.
The final of the World Cup will be played on June 29 at 10 am locally, 7:30 pm in India.
It has also been confirmed that there will be no reserve day for the second semi-final but if there is a delay for any reason, 250 minutes of extra time will be allowed for the match. However, there will be reserve days in the first semi-final and final.
Nepali cricketer Sandeep Lamichhane has got a clean chit in a rape case, making him available to play for his country in the T20 World Cup 2024.
In September 2023, the Nepal Cricket Association suspended Lamichhane from the team after he was accused of raping an 18-year-old girl.
On January 2024, Sandeep was sentenced to eight years in prison, while a fine of Rs300,000 (three lacs) was also imposed on him. Subsequently, he challenged the court’s decision in the High Court, stressing that he was innocent.
Now a two-judge bench has overturned the Kathmandu District Court’s verdict that had sentenced the 23-year-old to eight years in prison, citing lack of evidence in the case. As he has now been declared innocent, he will be available for selection in Nepal’s squad for the T20 World Cup 2024 in the USA starting from June 1.
Former Indian star batsman Sachin Tendulkar’s VIP security guard Parkash allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself.
According to Indian media, 39-year-old Prakash shot himself in the neck with his official gun. He was on vacation when he committed suicide, leaving behind parents, a wife and two young children.
Senior Police Inspector Kiran Shinde of the local police station said that the incident took place around 1:30 pm today. Investigations are on to find out the reasons behind the alleged suicide.
Pakistan Hockey team’s captain Ammad Shakeel Butt has blamed Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) for a decline in the sports sector.
The captain met Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz yesterday, where he and the team were given prize money of Rs 3 crores for their stunning and unexpected performance in Azlan Shah Hockey Cup.
Video Credit: ARY
Addressing a press conference with Maryam Nawaz, Ammad Butt said, “The ban on departmental sports during the previous PTI regime caused a loss to sports. The ranking of the hockey team fell not because of losing matches but because of not playing tournaments due to lack of funds.”
Maryam then said, “Not only the sports sector, but the institutions of the entire country were destroyed during the era of one athlete,” a thinly veiled reference to PTI head Imran Khan, a former cricket captain.
The Government of Punjab had earlier announced Rs 20 lakh for the national hockey team but later after meeting with CM Maryam Nawaz, the prize was increased to three crores.
In the Azlan Shah Hockey Tournament played in the city of Ipoh, Malaysia, the national team won three out of five matches while two were tied, but in the final match, they were defeated by Japan.