Sri Lanka | Pakistan

New Zealand knocked co-hosts Sri Lanka out of the T20 World Cup on Wednesday with a 61-run win in Colombo that boosted their semi-final hopes. Sri Lanka needed an emphatic win to stay alive but instead exited with a whimper, limping to 107-8 chasing New Zealand’s 168-7. A win for New Zealand against England on Friday at the same R. Premadasa stadium would see them top the Super Eights group and qualify for the semi-finals along with Harry Brook’s side. A defeat would open the door for Pakistan, who would probably need a big win against Sri Lanka in Kandy on Saturday to sneak through on net run rate. Sri Lanka were never in the chase as Matt Henry dismissed their leading batsman Pathum Nissanka with the first ball of the innings. Henry also removed Chairth Asalanka with the first ball of his second over to leave Sri Lanka in trouble at 6-2. Sri Lanka crawled to 20-2 at the end of the six-over power play, the lowest in the competition and Sri Lanka’s second lowest ever in T20 internationals. Part-time spinner R...

ISLAMABAD - Federal Minister for Interior and Narcotics Control Mohsin Naqvi met Sri Lanka’s Secretary of Defence, Air Vice Marshal (Retd.

Sri Lanka’s Pathum Nissanka scored the first century of the 2026 T20 World Cup on Monday to put his side into the Super Eights and leave Australia on the brink of elimination. Nissanka scored 100 not out off 52 balls with five sixes and 10 fours as Sri Lanka, chasing Australia’s 181, reached 184-2 with two overs to spare in Kandy to win by eight wickets. A victory by Zimbabwe over Ireland in Group B on Tuesday, or against Sri Lanka on Thursday, would eliminate the 2021 champions. If Zimbabwe lose both, Australia will need to beat Oman in their final match on Friday by a big margin to get through on net run rate. Nissanka was involved in a 97-run stand off 66 balls with Kusal Mendis for the second wicket with the wicketkeeper-batsman posting his third fifty in the competition. Nissanka became the first Sri Lankan to score two hundreds in T20 internationals. After Mendis’s dismissal, Nissanka and Pavan Rathnayake put on 76 off 34 balls to see Sri Lanka to victory. Nissanka played some glorious cover drives off ...

Pakistan and Sri Lanka have decided to broaden collaboration between their interior ministries, placing special emphasis on internal security coordination, counter-terrorism initiatives, and anti-narcotics operations.

Sri Lanka’s 11th-hour call to draft in Kamindu Mendis proved a masterstroke as the all-rounder produced a match-turning cameo to set up a 20-run win over Ireland in their T20 World Cup opener at Colombo’s R. Premadasa Stadium on Sunday. Kamindu’s blistering 44 off 19 balls with four fours and two sixes gave Sri Lanka the late thrust they badly needed to post 163. The spin trio of Maheesh Theekshana, Wanindu Hasaranga and Dunith Wellalage then ran through the Irish middle order, sharing seven wickets to seal a comfortable victory. “I just wanted to score a few boundaries and put a partnership with Kusal Mendis,” said Kamindu. “Kusal was outstanding today. He deserves a lot of credit. We wanted someone to bat through the innings. “They played well during the run chase until the 15th over. We had to keep our calm and we knew they had to take risks and we bowled well towards the end.” Hasaranga claimed three wickets to take his World Cup tally to 40, second only to Bangladesh’s Shakib Al Hasan, who has 50. There ...

Sri Lanka’s cricket board on Thursday asked Pakistan to reconsider its decision to boycott their first-round encounter with arch-rival India in the T20 World Cup co-hosted by the island. Pakistan decided not to play India on February 15 in Colombo to express solidarity with Bangladesh, who were excluded from the tournament after refusing to play their matches in India. Pakistan and India have not played bilateral cricket for more than a decade and meet only at global or regional tournament events. Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) told the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) that a boycott would result in a financial hit and also hurt the island’s tourism industry, which is still recovering from the 2022 economic meltdown. “Any non-participation will have wide-ranging implications, including substantial financial exposure for SLC and the potential loss of anticipated tourism inflows,” the board said. It recalled that Sri Lanka had toured Pakistan to express solidarity and revive international matches there when other nations ...

The Pakistan cricket team on Monday arrived in Sri Lanka for the T20 World Cup, which is set to begin on February 7. In a post on X, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said that a 15-player squad had arrived in the country. “The 15-player national squad includes Captain Salman Ali Agha, Abrar Ahmed, Babar Azam, Faheem Ashraf, Fakhar Zaman, Khawaja Mohammad Naeef, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Salman Mirza, Naseem Shah, Sahibzada Farhan, Saim Ayub, Shadab Khan, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Usman Khan, and Usman Tariq,” the PCB said in an earlier post, the informed of the squad’s department for the global event’s venue. In the latest update about the aquad’s arrival in Colombo, the board said the team would rest on Monday and Tuesday. “The team will play a warm-up match against Ireland on Feb 4,” PCB added. The T20 World Cup, co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka, is set to begin on Feb 7. On Sunday, the government gave the go-ahead for Pakistan’s participation in the tournament, but barred it from playing against arch-rival India...

Sri Lanka will deploy elite armed units to protect teams at next month’s T20 World Cup, part of enhanced security measures with a special emphasis on matches between perennial rivals India and Pakistan, officials have told AFP. The island is co-hosting the biennial cricket tournament with India and will hold 20 games between February 7 and March 8. The Indian and Pakistani teams will play each other at least once, in their Group A clash in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo on February 15. Cricket matches have long been a stage for expressing political tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours, which fought a four-day conflict last year. Sri Lanka has given the “highest priority” to ensuring the tournament runs smoothly and is “paying special attention to the India-Pakistan matches”, sports minister Sunil Kumara Gamage told AFP late on Wednesday. Elite commando units, usually assigned to guard visiting heads of state, will be deployed to protect all participating teams, police and security officials said. “Fr...

Featuring for Pakistan for the first time since June last year, Shadab Khan impressed with the ball, teaming up with Abrar Ahmed as Pakistan beat Sri Lanka by six wickets in the opening fixture of the three-match Twenty20 International series at the Rangiri Dambulla Cricket Stadium on Wednesday. The all-rounder took two wickets, while Abrar hunted three victims to restrict Sri Lanka to a paltry 128-run total before Sahibzada Farhan’s half century helped Pakistan chase down the target with 20 balls to spare. Shadab gave away only 25 runs in his four overs, bagging both his wickets in his very first over and could have gone on to take a third had it not been for a dropped catch later on. Coming into bowl in the seventh over, after Mohammad Wasim and Salman Mirza’s pace — that accounted for a wicket for each — saw Sri Lanka post 35-2 in the powerplay, Shadab trapped a sweeping Kusal Mendis lbw and induced an inside edge off Dhananjaya de Silva’s bat for wicket-keeper Usman Khan to take a good catch. With Sri Lan...

Sri Lanka has almost doubled its military deployment to regions struck by a cyclone that has killed 627, sending tens of thousands of troops to help areas hit by a wave of destruction, the army said on Monday. More than two million people — nearly 10 per cent of the population — have been affected by the disaster caused by Cyclone Ditwah, the worst on the island this century. Sri Lanka is expecting further heavy monsoon rains on Monday, topping 50 millimetres in many places, including the worst-affected central region, the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) said. It has also issued warnings of further landslides. The DMC has confirmed 627 deaths, with another 190 people unaccounted for since November 27, when intense rains brought on by Cyclone Ditwah triggered landslides and floods. The disaster management agency warned residents to “take adequate precautions to minimise damage caused by temporary localised strong winds and lightning during thundershowers”. Army chief Lasantha Rodrigo said 38,500 security pers...

Sri Lankan authorities issued fresh landslide warnings on Sunday with rains lashing areas already devastated by a powerful cyclone, as the death toll rose to 618. A chain of tropical storms and monsoonal rains has battered Southeast and South Asia, setting off landslides, flooding vast tracts and cutting off communities from Sumatra island’s rainforests to the highland plantations of Sri Lanka. At least 1,812 people have been killed in the natural disasters rolling across Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam over the past two weeks. Indonesia’s president on Sunday vowed to step up aid, with demonstrators rallying after the country’s death toll surpassed 900. More than two million people in Sri Lanka — nearly 10 per cent of the population — have been affected by last week’s floods and landslides triggered by Cyclone Ditwah, the worst on the island this century. The Disaster Management Centre (DMC) said monsoon storms were adding more rain and making hillsides unstable, including in the central ...

Pakistan has sent an urban search and rescue team to cyclone-hit Sri Lanka, where severe flooding and landslides triggered by Cyclone Ditwah have claimed more than 400 lives. According to Radio Pakistan, a Pakistan Air Force C-130 aircraft carrying a 47-member team along with 6.5 tons of essential equipment has departed to participate in the humanitarian and rescue efforts. Speaking at a ceremony in Islamabad for seeing off the aid on Wednesday morning, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) Chairman Lieutenant General Inam Haider Malik said the urban search and rescue team was being sent to help the people affected by the cyclone in Sri Lanka. He asserted that Pakistan and its government stood in solidarity with the people of Sri Lanka. The NDMA chairman further said that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Army Chief Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir had directed “full-out support” to assist those affected. “Pakistan has committed all-out support since November 28 when the cyclone impacted Sri Lanka,” he s...

Pakistan has expanded its relief efforts for storm-hit Sri Lanka following the devastation caused by the recent severe storm and an official appeal for assistance by the Sri Lankan government.

Islamabad - Pakistan yesterday dispatched 200 tonnes of relief supplies to Sri Lanka via sea cargo after India refused to use its airspace.

The Foreign Office (FO) said on Tuesday that India was preventing humanitarian assistance from being sent to Sri Lanka by air, prompting Islamabad to send aid by sea to the south Asian island, where severe flooding and landslides triggered by Cyclone Ditwah have claimed more than 400 lives. In a post on X, the FO said: “India continues to block humanitarian assistance from Pakistan to Sri Lanka. The special aircraft carrying Pakistan’s humanitarian assistance to Sri Lanka continues to face a delay of over 60 hours now awaiting flight clearance from India. “The partial flight clearance issued by India last night, after 48 hours, was operationally impractical: time-bound for just a few hours and without validity for the return flight, severely hindering this urgent relief mission for the brotherly people of Sri Lanka.” A statement issued later by the Pakistan High Commission in Sri Lanka said aircraft were awaiting clearance to fly and accused India of blocking the humanitarian relief operation through “shenani...

Nawaz Nashra recalls grabbing her three-year-old daughter, wrapping her in a bedsheet and running out of their home in central Sri Lanka as a landslide struck, triggered by a deadly cyclone that killed 410 people in the worst floods in a decade. Nashra and her pregnant sister, who lived with her, spent the next 20 minutes scrambling down the hillside from Alawathugoda village on Friday night, sometimes knee-deep in mud, until they reached a mosque at a lower altitude, where they spent the night. “It was pitch dark…We could only hear a sound like thunder,” she told Reuters. “The house next to ours collapsed as we watched. There was no time to warn anyone.” About 10 houses in the neighbourhood were swept away by Cyclone Ditwah and at least 25 people are feared dead, residents said on Tuesday, when they returned with long poles to dig through the mud and search for bodies. Deadly storms have swept across South and Southeast Asia in recent days, devastating large parts of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand and clai...

ISLAMABAD - A massive humanitarian operation launched by Pakistan to assist cyclone-ravaged Sri Lanka has been hampered after the Indian government refused to allow the Pakistani relief aircraft to use its airspace.

ISLAMABAD - During the ongoing Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) efforts in Sri Lanka, the embarked Z-9 helicopter on Pakistan Navy Ship SAIF conducted rescue operations in the flooded Kotikawatta area.

The Foreign Office (FO) received permission from India to use its airspace for humanitarian aid flights to Sri Lanka to provide flood relief, diplomatic sources confirmed to Dawn on Monday. The Sri Lankan government called for international aid and used military helicopters to reach people stranded by flooding and landslides triggered by Cyclone Ditwah. At least 355 people have been killed, Sri Lankan officials said on Monday, with another 366 still missing. An official in the foreign ministry told Dawn that earlier this evening, the Indian high commission sent written confirmation allowing humanitarian overflights through Indian airspace. The flights have been cleared to start tomorrow. The toll in deadly flooding and landslides across parts of Asia climbed past 1,100 on Monday as Sri Lanka and Indonesia deployed military personnel to help survivors. Separate weather systems brought torrential, extended rainfall to the entire island of Sri Lanka and large parts of Indonesia’s Sumatra, southern Thailand and n...

Sri Lankan authorities battled rising floodwaters in parts of the capital on Sunday after a powerful cyclone left a trail of destruction, killing at least 159 people across the country. The northern part of Colombo was facing a major flood, as the water level in the Kelani River continued to rise, the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) said. The death toll had reached 159, with another 203 people missing, the DMC reported, following a week of heavy rains brought on by Cyclone Ditwah, which moved away from Sri Lanka on Saturday. “Although the cyclone has left us, heavy rains upstream are now flooding low-lying areas along the banks of the Kelani River,” a DMC official said. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake declared a state of emergency yesterday to deal with the aftermath of the cyclone and appealed for international aid. India was the first to respond, sending relief supplies and two helicopters with crew to carry out rescue missions. Japan said it will send a team to assess immediate needs and pledged furthe...