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Perth: India posted a massive 309/3 in 50 overs against hosts Australia in the opening game of the five-match One-Day International (ODI) series at the WACA Ground here on Tuesday.
Opener Rohit Sharma (171 not out) slammed a superb century while Virat Kohli (91) gave him good support to help team post a challenging total.
(IANS)
Almost 100 homes destroyed and three people missing in Yarloop in summer wildfires possibly linked to hot, dry weather.
![Scientists have warned that climate change could increase the length and intensity of the summer fire season [Reuters]](https://i0.wp.com/nasheman.in/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Australia.jpg)
Scientists have warned that climate change could increase the length and intensity of the summer fire season [Reuters]
A major bushfire in Western Australia has destroyed nearly 100 homes and left three people unaccounted for, emergency officials say.
The fire, which had already razed 53,000 hectares of land this week, struck Yarloop, a small rural town south of Perth, on Thursday night.
“I believe we’ve had what I would suggest are catastrophic losses within Yarloop,” Wayne Gregson, Western Australian fire and emergency services commissioner, said on Friday.
Local media reported that 95 homes were destroyed, together with the post office, shops and the fire station, in the town which has a population of only 545.
“It just got out of control … after that it just ripped through, it was quite scary,” Jesse Puccio, a volunteer firefighter, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“It’s like when you see in the war when the napalm bombers go through.”
Aerial footage showed houses reduced to just their brick fireplaces, leaving only blackened ground and the burned-out shells of vehicles.
Ron Sackville, a Yarloop resident, told 6PR radio there was “very little” left.
“I look around 360 degrees and everything is burned to a cinder. The fire was horrendous,” he said.
Another resident described the overnight emergency – initially triggered by a lightning strike – as like the town being hit by “fireballs”.
“It’s devastating,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “The hall is gone. I believe the pub’s gone. The workshops are gone. The old hospital is gone. I think the church is gone.”
The bushfire in Western Australian is the latest in a series of fires that have razed parts of the country amid sustained hot and dry weather.
Four people were killed in a series of bushfires sparked by lightning in Western Australia last November. More than 100 homes were destroyed in fires on Christmas Day in Victoria, while two people were killed in South Australia.
Wildfires are an annual summer event in Australia but rising temperatures have prompted some scientists to warn that climate change could increase the length and intensity of the summer fire season.
Australia experienced its fifth hottest year on record in 2015, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, which has been keeping statistics since 1910.
Firefighters battle blaze as it tracks along the coastline of the southern Australian state of Victoria.
![The homes were destroyed in small holiday communities on Australia's picturesque Great Ocean Road [Reuters]](https://i0.wp.com/nasheman.in/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Australia.jpg)
The homes were destroyed in small holiday communities on Australia’s picturesque Great Ocean Road [Reuters]
At least 116 homes have been destroyed in a bushfire that continues to rage along the coast of Australia’s southeastern state of Victoria, but so far no deaths have been reported.
The majority of the homes were lost at Wye River and Separation Creek, small holiday communities about 160km southwest of Melbourne on the picturesque Great Ocean Road, officials said on Saturday.
Victorian state Premier Daniel Andrews said the property losses “confirmed for us just how hot, just how volatile, just how intense this fire was, burning right to the water’s edge”, the ABC reported.
Hundreds of families were evacuated from their homes and an emergency warning remained in place in Wye River and Separation Creek on Saturday afternoon local time.
Firefighters are continuing to battle the blaze.
A lightning strike is believed to have sparked the fires in Victoria about a week ago. They have since burned more than 2,000 hectares.
Authorities warned on Saturday that the fire risk in Victoria would continue over the next two months, as southern Australia bakes in summer heat.
“This fire doesn’t go away. This fire is a fire that will remain with potential to burn in January and February this year,” Victorian emergency services commissioner Craig Lapsley said.
“We will be back into hot, windy weather in January without a doubt. Everything’s available to burn.”
Southern and western Australia suffers from severe summer bushfires on a yearly basis.
In February 2009, Victoria suffered the worst bushfires in the country’s history when 173 people were killed and hundreds were injured in multiple blazes across rural areas of the state.
Shaun Marsh’s 49 helped Australia to victory
by BBC
Adelaide: Australia sealed a 2-0 victory in the three-match series against New Zealand with a three-wicket win in a gripping inaugural day-night Test in Adelaide.
Set 187 to win after bowling the Kiwis out in the first session on day three, the hosts were made to work hard for every run.
Trent Boult took 5-60 but Shaun Marsh’s 49 and 28 each from Adam Voges and Mitchell Marsh proved decisive.
Josh Hazlewood took a career-best 6-70 to help dismiss New Zealand for 208.
All of the real drama, though, was reserved for the evening when, for the third day running, the extra swing of the pink ball ensured a regular fall of wickets.
Boult was the main beneficiary, adding a five-wicket haul to the 2-41 he claimed in the first innings to keep an increasingly nervous home side and crowd on edge throughout what had seemed a straightforward chase.
Hazlewood shines with pink ball
In the absence of Mitchell Starc, who has been unable to bowl or field since injuring his foot on Friday, Hazlewood came to the fore, spearheading the Australia pace attack in impressive fashion.
The 24-year-old helped the home side dominate the first session, getting them off to the best possible start by dismissing BJ Watling – caught at slip by Steve Smith – before the Kiwis had added to their overnight lead of 94.
Hazlewood completed his five-wicket haul when he had Mark Craig caught behind for 15 to leave New Zealand 140-7.
After spinner Nathan Lyon had Mitchell Santner, the innings’ top scorer with 45, stumped and all-rounder Mitchell Marsh claimed a third wicket by having Tim Southee (13) caught pulling at deep backward square, Hazlewood finished New Zealand off by bowling Boult.
Doug Bracewell was the last man standing, his 27 not out helping the visitors set a modest target of 187.
Boult gives New Zealand hope
Wary of a repeat of the extra swing generated by the pink ball in the first two days of the Test, Australia set about their chase in an urgent fashion, amassing 34 runs in five and a half overs.
Their progress was checked, though, as Boult began to capitalise on the increased movement to trap Joe Burns lbw for 11.
The Kiwi seamer repeated the trick to dismiss Australia captain Steve Smith, shortly after David Warner had edged Doug Bracewell to Southee at second slip following a typically rapid 35 from 37 balls, to leave the home side vulnerable at 66-3.
Voges and Shaun Marsh steadied the ship with a resilient partnership of 49 – the third highest of a low-scoring match – before Boult struck again, dismissing the former by finding an edge that was again taken by Southee at second slip.
Marsh’s crucial innings
Having lost partner Voges, Shaun Marsh showed superb resilience to forge another important partnership with brother Mitchell.
The pair put on 46, taking Australia to within 26 runs of victory before Mitchell departed, caught off a top-edge by Kane Williamson from the bowling of Mitchell Santner.
Shaun Marsh added 15 more crucial runs with Peter Nevill before he too fell, caught at slip off Boult, to silence the crowd and bring Peter Siddle to the crease.
Boult provided one more twist, getting Nevill to nick one to a diving BJ Watling, but Siddle and the limping Starc finally saw Australia home.
by Robert Smith, AFP
Adelaide: New Zealand held a tenuous 94-run lead in the absorbing day-night third Test after a second day of tumbling wickets at the Adelaide Oval on Saturday.
The Kiwis, trailing 1-0 in the series, struggled to build a defendable total to present Australia in the fourth innings after another fast-paced day’s cricket of 13 wickets before 42,372 fans.
116 for five At the close, the Black Caps were finding batting difficult under lights and were 116 for five with a result looming on Sunday’s third day in the scheduled five-day Test.
New Zealand had lost their top batsmen and at the crease were B.J. Watling on seven with debutant Mitchell Santner not out 13.
“Definitely no figure. Whatever we end up with we’re just going to have to get some wickets but more importantly having that new ball as close to twilight as possible,” senior batsman Ross Taylor said.
“If we can keep them out there and keep our bowlers from bowling not as many overs tomorrow, then we give ourselves the best chance.”
Josh Hazlewood led the Australian attack with three wickets in the absence of injured spearhead Mitchell Starc as the pink ball again dominated the bat.
Hazlewood removed both openers with mesmerising ball movement under lights. Martin Guptill sliced to Mitch Marsh in the gully for 17 and Tom Latham was tempted by a wider delivery and was caught behind for 10.
Hazlewood had Kane Williamson dropped on one by Adam Voges in the slips but the star Kiwi batsman soon feathered a catch to Nevill off Mitch Marsh for nine to complete a low-scoring match.
Captain Brendon McCullum followed for 20, leg before wicket to Marsh and Perth Test double century-maker Taylor fell the same way to Hazlewood for 32.
“The wicket’s not that bad to have so many wickets taken in two days,” Hazlewood said.
“We had a middle-order collapse today. We should probably be still batting now. We’ll try and fix that for the second innings.”
The second day turned on a contentious challenge decision in Australia’s favour before dinner, enabling them to go on and grab a 22-run innings lead.
Nathan Lyon survived a review in which ‘Hot Spot’ revealed a mark on the back of his bat before he had scored.
The review was churned over for minutes before the TV umpire Nigel Llong decided there was not enough to go on despite the Hot Spot evidence to give Lyon out, caught off spinner Santner, with Australia reeling at 118 for eight and trailing the Kiwis by 84 runs.
Lyon walked three-quarters of the way off the ground believing he was out before he returned to continue batting and join in a record Australian trans-Tasman series 74-run ninth-wicket stand with Peter Nevill.
Lyon was eventually out for 34 as the Australians hit back to take an innings lead with incapacitated Mitchell Starc smashing two massive sixes off spinner Mark Craig.
Starc, who came into bat at No.11 after being diagnosed with a stress foot fracture on Friday, thrilled the home crowd with his prodigious hitting.
Nevill was the hero and was the last man out for his highest Test score of 66 leaving the hobbling Starc unbeaten on 24 which included two sixes and three fours.
Doug Bracewell finished his side’s best bowler with three for 18 off 12.1 overs.
It was rough justice for the Kiwis, who have been on the receiving end of some controversial umpiring decisions.
Australia were in dire trouble at 116 for eight at tea after a rampant Kiwi bowling performance in the first session.
The Black Caps snared Steve Smith’s prized wicket when he charged off-spinner Craig only to be caught by wicketkeeper Watling.
The Kiwis had the Australians well on the back foot with Peter Siddle out four balls later in the same Craig over and then Hazlewood was bowled by Santner for four in the final over before tea.
Just 62 runs were scored by Australia for the loss of six wickets in the first session off 29.5 overs.
Tony Abbott to step aside as prime minister after losing leadership challenge to Malcolm Turnbull.
by Al Jazeera
Australia is to get a new Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, after embattled leader Tony Abbott lost a challenge for the leadership of the Liberal Party, the senior partner in the ruling conservative coalition.
The former communications minister, Malcolm Turnbull, is to become Australia’s 29th prime minister after defeating Abbott in party room spill with 54 votes to 44.
Turnbull is expected to be sworn in as prime minister by Australia’s governor-general Peter Cosgrove on Tuesday.
Turnbull on Monday said he informed Abbott he would challenge him for the leadership after losing confidence in his management of the economy.
“The prime minister has not been capable of providing the economic leadership our nation needs. He has not been capable of providing the economic confidence that business needs,” Turnbull told reporters in Canberra.
Volatile
The leadership vote continues an extraordinarily volatile period in Australian federal politics, especially as the Liberals were elected in 2013 as a stable alternative to the then Labor government.
Labor came to power under Kevin Rudd at the 2007 elections, only to dump him in the face of poor opinion polling for his deputy Julia Gillard in 2010, months ahead of elections.
The bitterly divided and chaotic government then dumped Gillard for Rudd just months before the 2013 election.
Before Rudd was elected in 2007, John Howard was in power for almost 12 years.
The government has trailed the opposition in a range of opinion polls since April last year.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott says Australia will target armed group within days, and accept 12,000 Syrians and Iraqis.
![Abbott reversed on comments made on Sunday, when he said Australia was not planning to boost the overall intake of refugees [EPA]](https://i0.wp.com/nasheman.in/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Tony-Abbott.jpg)
Abbott reversed on comments made on Sunday, when he said Australia was not planning to boost the overall intake of refugees [EPA]
Australia has announced it will launch air strikes against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group targets in Syria within days and resettle an additional 12,000 refugees from the deepening humanitarian and security crisis in the Middle East.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott also announced Wednesday that his government will pay an additional $31m to support 240,000 Syrians and Iraqis in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey.
Labor welcomes the Abbott Govt’s announcement to provide 12,000 additional places for people fleeing persecution in the Middle East. #auspol
— Bill Shorten (@billshortenmp) September 9, 2015
On Sunday, Abbott said Australia would allocate more spaces in its 13,750 annual intake quota to those fleeing violence in Syria, but did not plan to boost the overall intake, sparking criticism from across the political spectrum.
The opposition Labor Party was among the critics, calling for an additional 10,000 refugees to be resettled from Syria.
After Abbott announced an even higher figure on Wednesday, opposition leader Bill Shorten said that the plan had bipartisan support.
The Australian government will give preference to women, children and families from persecuted minorities from Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, Abbott said.
The prime minister also announced that Australia’s involvement in strikes against ISIL, which already take place in Iraq, could extend to Syria within days.
“Destroying this death cult is essential, not just to ending the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East but also to ending the threat to Australia and the wider world,” Abbott said.
The government said the legal basis for extending air operations into Syria was the collective self-defence of Iraq as the armed group did not respect national borders.
“We are exercising the right to collective self-defence under Article 51 of the UN charter in striking Daesh [ISIL] in Syria,” Abbott said, adding that the focus of the campaign would be on ISIL, and not the Assad government.
“We have no legal basis at this point in time for wider strikes in Syria and we don’t intend to make wider strikes in Syria,” he said.
Nottingham: England regained the Ashes by sealing an innings and 78-run victory over Australia on the third day of the fourth Test here on Saturday.
England needed only three wickets to take an unassailable 3-1 lead in the five-match series and they took it without much trouble at Trent Bridge. Australia were bowled out for 253 runs in their second innings.
They claimed those three wickets within an hour of play on Saturday. Pacer Ben Stokes claimed a wicket on Saturday to end with figures of 6-36 in the second innings.
The win caps a remarkable reversal from the 0-5 whitewash suffered by England Down Under in 2013-14.
Stokes second over of the morning set England on their course for victory as he claimed the opening breakthrough, forcing Mitchell Starc to edge one to Ian Bell at second slip for a duck.
Fellow pacer Mark Wood got in on the act as he bowled Josh Hazlewood (0) as England sensed victory in double-quick time with barely an hour of the morning session having passed.
Adam Voges (51) did go to his half century but it was his partner Lyon whose wicket led to the regaining of the Ashes, as he played on off the bowling of Wood to spark scenes of wild celebration as England reached the crowning moment.
England took a giant step on their road to victory when Australia collapsed to just 60 all out in 111 balls on Thursday with right-arm Stuart Broad taking eight for 15.
Within moments of the loss, Australian captain Michael Clarke announced his retirement after the final Ashes Test at The Oval cricket ground, in London, this month.
He told Channel 9: “The time is right. I want to play the last Test at The Oval and give it one more crack. I’ll take so many memories away. I’m looking forward to sitting and cheering the boys on. It’s the right time.”
England have now won five of the last seven Ashes series and the last four at home.
(IANS)
by BBC
England paceman Stuart Broad took 8-15 as Australia were bowled out in the quickest time ever in the first innings of a Test on a remarkable first day in the fourth Ashes match at Trent Bridge.
Broad equalled the fastest five-wicket haul, taking 5-6 in 19 balls, as the tourists were 60 all out in 111 balls.
Australia are just the fourth side in Test history to bat first and be fielding before lunch on the first day.
Broad, 29, also became the fifth English bowler to reach 300 wickets.
He also returned England’s third best Ashes bowling figures of all time – only beaten by Jim Laker’s 9-37 and 10-53 at Old Trafford in 1956.
And his five-wicket haul is the fastest taken from the start of a Test innings, beating the 25 balls required by South Africa’s Vernon Philander to claim five New Zealand wickets at Cape Town in January 2013.
Broad had Chris Rogers caught at first slip by Alastair Cook with just his second ball – claiming his 300th wicket and inflicting a first duck in 46 Test innings on the Australian opener in the process – before having Steve Smith caught at third slip by Joe Root from his sixth delivery.
He then had Shaun Marsh caught by Ian Bell at second slip in his second over and Adam Voges spectacularly caught by Ben Stokes at fifth slip in his third.
Michael Clarke became Broad’s fifth victim, slashing a ball to Cook at first slip from Broad’s 19th ball, thus equalling the number of deliveries needed by Australia’s Ernie Toshack to claim five wickets against India at Brisbane in 1947 – though Toshack did not open the bowling.
Mark Wood and Steven Finn also took a wicket apiece as Australia were reduced to 38-7 in 11 overs.
Broad then claimed the last three wickets as Mitchell Starc and Mitchell Johnson both edged to Root at slip before Nathan Lyon was the last man out, caught by Stokes at sixth slip, 20 minutes before lunch.
Nottinghamshire seamer Broad is playing in his 83rd Test, having made his debut against Sri Lanka in 2007.
He joins Fred Trueman, Bob Willis, Sir Ian Botham and his team-mate James Anderson in England’s 300 club – with his eighth wicket drawing him level with Trueman on 307.
Anderson, who reached the 300 mark in May 2013, is England’s leading wicket-taker with 413 – although he is missing the fourth Test with a side injury.
Broad has played in three winning Ashes series – in 2009, 2010-11 and 2013 – and scored a Test century against Pakistan at Lord’s in August 2010.
Chennai: Australia hammered India A by 10 wickets on the fourth day of the second and final four-day cricket match to pocket the series 1-0 at the M.A. Chidambaram stadium here on Saturday.
India ended Friday’s play at 267/6 in their second innings, a lead of only 53 runs. And they needed a huge effort from their tail-enders to bail them out to a possible draw.
But on expected lines, they were bowled out for 274 as Indian origin pacer Gurinder Sandhu bagged three quick wickets and left-arm spinner Steve O’Keefe got a four-wicket haul in the innings.
As a result, Australia needed only 60 runs to win, which they did without losing any wickets. Cameron Bancroft, who scored 150 in the first innings, remained not out on 21, while captain Usman Khawaja was not out on 41.
Earlier in the day, Baba Aparajith managed to add only two runs to his overnight score of 28, while the other not out batter Shreyas Gopal failed to open his account — both were dismissed by right-armer Sandhu. Varun Aaron (1)fell to the paceman as he edged an away moving delivery to wicket-keeper Matthew Wade.
Spinner O’Keefe, who on Friday rocked the Indian top-order with wickets of Virat Kohli, skipper Cheteshwar Pujara and Shreyas Iyer, removed Shardul Thakur to end the Indian innings for 274.
A target of 60 runs was a cakewalk for the Australians as their openers raced to 62 in just 6.2 overs.
Brief Scores: India A 135 & 274 (Abhinav Mukund 59, Shreyas Iyer 49; Steve O’Keefe 4-88, Gurinder Sandhu 3-76) vs Australia A 349 and 62/0. Australia A win by 10 wickets.
(IANS)