India defeated Australia

Jaipur, October 16
What do you do after watching a thriller like the one played out at Sawai Mansingh Stadium on Wednesday - admire India's herculean batting effort or lament the miserable bowling attack that was torn to shreds.

A difficult question to answer, considering that the performances batsmen and bowlers came up with qualify to go down as one of the best and worst in the annals of the Indian cricket.

At the end of the day,however, it's the superlative batting effort that will stay in the minds of the people for a long, long time, pushing the forgettable bowling show into oblivion. And that's how it should be as Indian batsmen scaled an almost insurmountable peak in chasing down a mammoth 359, in what is overall the second highest successful chase and India's best ever in the ODIs. The chase, in addition to the fabulous victory, also gave India its fastest centurion in this format - Virat Kohli who hammered unbeaten hundred off just 52 balls, studded with eight hits to the boundary and seven over it.

The match, before this incredible effort, looked all but lost for India after the Australians butchered Indian attack to put up a record 359 - the same total they amassed in the 2003 World Cup final against India, with all of their top five batsmen hammering half-centuries, a first in the ODIs.

With nothing short of a shot required at history for victory, it's only fair to assume that the opening pair of Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma would have had more doubts than hope swirling in their head as they walked out to the middle.

But with every passing over, as they grew in confidence and the strokes started flowing from their willows, the hope returned, and everyone sat tight in anticipation of the victory that they would retell everyone who had not been fortunate enough to witness it.

The faint glimmer of hope started flickering a little more violently when the raced to hundred with loss, and then, in no time, India had 176 runs on the board without loss. At this juncture, India lost Dhawan, missing the highly deserved hundred merely by five runs.

If one thought he had seen the best knock of the day, punctuated with rasping pulls and thumping cover drives and ferocious cuts, and Australia had got the window of opportunity they were desperately looking for, it didn't take him long to stand corrected.

Entered Virat Kohli, and the balance tilted even more rapidly in India's favour. While Rohit Sharma also played an impressive 141-run knock, it was the stunning hundred from off just 52 balls from Virat Kohli, the fastest by in Indian in the ODIs, that took away one' breath and the game from Australia. "It was just an unbelievable knock from Virat. No matter what we did, he just going…that's was pretty much the turning point of the game for me," said Australia captain George Bailey.

It was indeed an incredible assault from the Delhi boy, something impossible to describe in words. All one could say is that the harder the Australians threw the ball at him, the farther it flew into the stands. He got into the thick of things the moment he arrived on the wicket, and soon the ball was flying to all corners of the stadium.

The Australians just didn't know what and where to bowl, and soon the daunting target was overhauled just like that with plenty to spare, 6.3 overs and nine wickets. An incredible win indeed!

The Indian bowlers, too, must have taken some heart and consolation from the beating their counterparts took. Given the limitation of this particular attack, no one was expecting them to bowl the Aussies out for a modest total. 

All one would have hoped for was par performance, not letting Australians set a target that was tucked away in the realms of the impossible. Yet, that's what exactly happened. It all began with the pacers inability to pick up early wicket. Aaron Finch and Phil Hughes saw off the new ball without any damage yet again, putting on 74 run for the first wicket. With the platform laid, the following batsmen, Shane Watson (59), George Bailey (92) and Glenn Maxwell (52) tore apart the Indian attack.

While the charge from the Aussies was of course brutal, the bowlers were guilty of offering them easy pickings, bowling short of length, full tosses and over-pitched stuff with alarming regularity.

SCOREBOARD

Australia
Finch run out (Raina) 50
Hughes c Dhoni b Ashwin 83
Watson c I Sharma b Vinay 59
Bailey not out 92
Maxwell run out (Raina) 53
Voges c Kumar b Vinay 11
Haddin not out1
Extras: (lb 5, w 5) 10
Total (5 wickets; 50 overs) 359
Fall of wickets: 1-74, 2-182, 3-212, 4-308, 5-347
Bowling
B Kumar 10-0-54-0
I Sharma 9-1-70-0
Vinay 9-0-73-2
Jadeja 10-0-72-0
Ashwin 8-0-50-1
Yuvraj 4-0-35-0

India
Rohit not out 141
Dhawan c Haddin b Faulkner 95
Kohli not out 100
Extras: (lb 5, w 21) 26
Total (1 wicket; 43.3 overs) 362
Fall of wickets: 1-176
Bowling
Johnson 9-1-68-0
McKay 7-0-64-0
Watson 5-0-47-0
Doherty 10-0-70-0
Maxwell 5.3-0-48-0

Faulkner 7-0-60-1

US couple of Punjabi descent held for murder

Washington, October 16
An Indian-American couple has been arrested for the murder of the man's former wife, also a person of Indian origin (PIO), in a Washington suburb.

Baldeo Taneja, 62, was arrested in Nashville, Tennessee, in connection with the slaying of Preeta Paul Gabba, 49, on Saturday morning in Germantown, Maryland.

Initially charged as fugitives from justice, the couple is awaiting extradition to Montgomery County, Maryland, the police said.

The police has issued warrants charging Taneja with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.

Taneja’s wife, Raminder Kaur, 63, faces the same charges.

Gabba was found with a gunshot wound on Saturday at 7.46 am after people reported hearing gunshots in the area, a local television station reported citing the police.

Gabba was transported to a hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Several witnesses reported that a woman was seen walking by Gabba at the time of the shooting, but she left before the police arrived at the scene.

Taneja was scheduled to be in court in Montgomery County last Thursday regarding a domestic issue, but he failed to appear for the hearing.

The police also found that Taneja and Raminder were both in Montgomery County on Friday and Saturday. Both had purchased two firearms in Nashville on September 28. 

US ship won’t be allowed to move till probe is completed: Indian Govt

Chennai/Tuticorin, October 16
The US-based ship detained off Tuticorin port for illegally carrying arms and ammunition will not be allowed to move out till the probe was over, Shipping Minister G K Vasan said today as Tamil Nadu Q Branch Police took over the investigation from Marine police.

"We are still to find answers to many questions, the probe will bring out the truth. Till then, the ship will not be allowed to move out of Tuticorin port", he told reporters here.

Vasan's remarks assumed significance in the backdrop of BJP voicing concern over what it called the Centre's "silence" over the detaining of M V Seaman Guard Ohio and its demand that the government come clean on the issue.

Meanwhile, in Tuticorin, a Q Branch team, led by Superintendent of Police K Bhavaneeswari, questioned some crew members and obtained details on various issues, including the arms and ammunition stored onboard the vessel. The state government had yesterday transferred the probe into the ship case to the Q Branch. Sources said the the Q Branch team perused records available on board the ship and they were being scrutinised.

The ship flying the Sierra Leone flag was intercepted by the Coast Guard in Indian waters some 15 nautical miles off Tuticorin coast on October 12 and an FIR registered against 35 persons onboard under the Arms Act for carrying arms without authorisation and Essential Commodities Act for buying 1,500 litres of diesel illegally with the help of a local shipping agent. 

Mount Everest avalanche kills four

BEIJING — An Australian tourist and three Tibetans have died in an avalanche on Mount Everest, state media reported Wednesday.

A local tourist agency organized a trip for four tourists to an off-limits area on Sunday evening, according to the Xinhua News Agency. The group of 10, which included three herders who acted as porters, two cooks and a tour guide, encountered an avalanche, and one Australian and the three local herders died, it reported.

The Australian Embassy confirmed the death of a 60-year-old man from southern Australia in Tibet. It said consular officials in Beijing were attempting to contact the man’s family to offer assistance.

The Xinhua report said the local government had organized a rescue effort after receiving a distress report, and that following the rescue, the Australian had died as a result of altitude sickness, poor health and age, citing officials in Shigatse, a city in western Tibet.

State broadcaster CCTV said 154 people who had been stranded by the avalanche were rescued Tuesday, 86 at the Everest base camp on the mountain’s Chinese side.

Mount Everest death toll graphic: A chronicle of all of the lives claimed by the world's tallest point

Image courtesy: National Post 

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Plane crash in Laos leaves 49 dead, including 1 Canadian

44 passengers, 5 crew killed after Lao Airlines flight crashes

BANGKOK, Thailand — One Canadian was among 49 people aboard a Laos Airlines domestic flight that crashed Wednesday in Laos and authorities in the Southeast Asian country say they fear there are no survivors,  the Lao government said.

The Ministry of Public Works and Transport, which operates the airline as a state enterprise, said 44 passengers and five crew members were aboard flight QV301 from the Lao capital, Vientiane, to Pakse in the country's south. Earlier reports had said there were 39 passengers on board.

Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Sek Wannamethee said the flight crashed about 8 kilometres short of the international airport at Pakse.

"Upon preparing to land at Pakse Airport the aircraft ran into extreme bad weather conditions and was reportedly crashed into the Mekong River," the ministry said in a statement. It said there was no word of survivors. The airline flies an ATR-72 twin-engine turboprop plane on the 467-kilometre route.

Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Sek Wannamethee said his country's embassy in Vientiane was informed that the plane crashed between seven and eight kilometres from the airport at Pakse.

A passenger manifest faxed by the airline listed 44 people: 17 Lao, seven French, five Australians, five Thais, three Koreans, two Vietnamese and one person each from Canada, China, Malaysia, Taiwan and the United States. Korean, French and Thai officials confirmed the totals for their nationalities.

The Lao government said the airline "is taking all necessary steps to co-ordinate and dispatch all rescue units to the accident site in the hope of finding survivors."

It said the crash is being investigated and the airline hoped to announce its findings on Thursday. A Laos Airlines employee contacted by phone at Vientiane's Wattay airport said a news conference would be held Thursday.

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