LONDON: Former Wimbledon, US Open and Olympic champion Andy Murray is set to compete at the Paris Games for Britain, the British Olympic Association said on Sunday. The 37-year-old Scot, who won gold at the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Games, is the only player to win back-to-back Olympic titles in singles. Murray will be joined by debutants Jack Draper, Cameron Norrie and Dan Evans in what could be his final tournament. Former US Open champion Emma Raducanu was not included in the line-up. The BBC reported that Raducanu, who is still coming back from surgery on her wrists and…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
NORTH SOUND: Reigning champions England reached the second round of the T20 World Cup with a 41-run victory in a must-win group game against Namibia in Antigua on Saturday. Anything other than an England win would have seen Jos Buttler’s men knocked out and they were left fearing an early exit when rain delayed the scheduled start by three hours. England, in a match eventually reduced from 11 to 10 overs per side by a fresh shower, collapsed to 13-2 after losing the toss. But a stand of 56 between the Yorkshire duo of Harry Brook (47 not out off…
LAUDERHILL: Pakistan cricket is at its lowest point and needs to make radical changes, all-rounder Imad Wasim said after the team failed to get out of the group stage of the T20 World Cup. The 2009 champions, beaten finalists two years ago, lost to the USA and India with their sole victory coming against Canada. Asked about the exit, with the USA beating Pakistan to Super Eight qualification, along with India, Wasim said there was no doubt about the level of disappointment. “This is the lowest point. You can’t go any lower than this. That’s the fact,” he told a press conference. Asked whether there now…
Pakistan captain Babar Azam said on Sunday the team’s batting let them down at the Twenty20 World Cup and apologised to fans for failing to reach the Super Eight stage. The Green Shirts fell to the tournament’s biggest upset when the United States, a tier-two member of the game, beat the 2009 champions via Super Over. Defeat by arch-rivals India then left Babar’s side with a mountain to climb to advance. India and the US bagged the two Super Eight slots from Group A while Pakistan finished third after Sunday’s laboured three-wicket victory against Ireland. “Thank you so much for supporting us, and sorry for that…
West Indies left-hander Nicholas Pooran combined elegance with power to score 98 with eight sixes on Monday and propel his team to a 104-run win over Afghanistan in the final first-round match of the Twenty20 World Cup at Gros Islet in St Lucia. Pooran was run out by a direct hit on the stumps by Azmatullah Omarzai attempting a second run in the final over as West Indies amassed 218 for five, the highest score of the competition. In reply, Afghanistan reached 114 from 16.2 overs although the result was academic as both teams had already qualified for the Super…
In a few words, the FY25 budget for the agriculture sector lacks long-term vision, national priorities, and strategic direction. The absence of defined goals and a coherent strategy to address the sector’s pressing issues renders budgetary allocations and financial measures meaningless and ineffectual. The budget is devoid of new initiatives and appears to be a mere replica of the previous year’s budget, with some minor adjustments in allocations. Consequently, it is unlikely to catalyse significant growth within the sector. The agriculture sector faces three major challenges: higher production costs, lower crop yields, and an ineffective crop marketing system. All other…
ISLAMABAD: The government has highlighted almost a dozen critical risks to next year’s budget and medium-term outlook, including higher interest rates, currency depreciation and greater subsidy requirements, challenging revenue targets, lower than estimated economic growth, unexpected climatic or natural disasters and continuing poor performance of State-Owned Entities (SOEs). In a written statement of fiscal risks submitted to parliament, required under the Public Finance Management Act 2019, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb and Secretary Imdadullah Bosal said that a combination of three risks — higher than the estimated interest rate, lower than non-tax revenue collection and higher subsidies — had the most…
LAHORE: Disillusioned by low prices for their crop and the lack of government support, cotton growers have shifted to alternative crops, resulting in lower cultivation area and yield. The difference in cultivation data from last year and this year’s Kharif season is the most stark in ‘Punjab’s cotton valley’ comprising Bahawalpur, Multan and Dera Ghazi Khan divisions. Data from the Punjab Crop Reporting Service (CRS) show that white lint could not achieve its sowing target of four million acres and fell short by 19 per cent to 3.22m acres in the Kharif season of 2024. The total cultivation area was over 32pc…
Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit North Korea this week for the first time in 24 years, the two countries said, a rare trip that underscores Moscow’s burgeoning partnership with the nuclear-armed state. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un extended an invitation to Putin during a visit to Russia’s Far East last September. Putin last visited Pyongyang in July 2000. “At the invitation of the Chairman of State Affairs of the DPRK, Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin will pay a friendly state visit to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on June 18-19,” the Kremlin said. North Korea’s state news agency KCNA also…
India will launch an investigation on Tuesday into a train collision that killed nine people in the state of West Bengal and injured more than 50, a day after a top railway official blamed the incident on driver error. The death toll was revised down to nine from 15 after Monday’s accident, in which a freight train rammed into a passenger train heading for the state capital of Kolkata from the northeastern state of Tripura. The investigation by India’s top railway safety official will start on Tuesday, Chetan Kumar Shrivastava, general manager of the Northeast Frontier railway, where the accident happened, told Reuters.…
