The Pakistan Super League (PSL) final will be held in Pakistan instead of the UAE in March as international cricket gradually returns to the country.
The inaugural PSL was played exclusively in the UAE last year, and while the group and playoff stages will continue to be shared between the Sharjah Cricket Stadium and the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, the March 7 showpiece will be held at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore.
International cricket returned to Pakistan in 2015 for the first time since the 2009 attack on the Sri Lanka team bus that injured six players, killed six security personnel and two civilians.
On that occasion it was Zimbabwe who agreed to a three-match one day international series and two Twenty20 matches. However, no other Test teams have visited the country since.
Since the 2009 attack, Pakistan have played all their home series in the UAE and launched their own T20 league in the Emirates last year, a tournament that proved a success.
“We will host the final in Lahore on March 7,” the PCB’s executive committee chairman Najam Sethi told Reuters. “We are going full steam ahead, and have all the green signals.”
Last week, Giles Clarke, the head of the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Pakistan Task Force, arrived in the country on a two-day fact-finding mission on security.
“We’ve been able to see very significant work that has been invested in, and invested very wisely in how safety and security will be made possible for visiting international cricket teams,” Clarke said.
“There’s a considerable amount of perception that needs to be changed and information that needs to be shared. But I am most impressed by the efforts of the authorities to make Lahore a safe city.”
A senior PCB official said the PSL final would be hosted in Lahore “for sure, but only if there is no big security related incident from now to Feb. 9,” when the league kicks off in the UAE.
Last year, the PCB sold five franchises for $93 million (Dh341.6m) and attracted players from 11 different countries, including big names like West Indies batsman Chris Gayle and former Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara and England’s Kevin Pietersen.
National television viewing figures were higher than for the 2015 World Cup, with 55 per cent of Pakistan’s TV-watching public tuning into the tournament at peak times.
The 2017 PSL will start on February 9 with defending champions Islamabad United taking on Peshawar Zalmi at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.
* Agencies
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Ahmed Raza
UAE cricket captain
Age: 31
Born: Sharjah
Role: Left-arm spinner
One-day internationals: 31 matches, 35 wickets, average 31.4, economy rate 3.95
T20 internationals: 41 matches, 29 wickets, average 30.3, economy rate 6.28
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
Company Profile:
Name: The Protein Bakeshop
Date of start: 2013
Founders: Rashi Chowdhary and Saad Umerani
Based: Dubai
Size, number of employees: 12
Funding/investors: $400,000 (2018)
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
What is an FTO Designation?
FTO designations impose immigration restrictions on members of the organisation simply by virtue of their membership and triggers a criminal prohibition on knowingly providing material support or resources to the designated organisation as well as asset freezes.
It is a crime for a person in the United States or subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to knowingly provide “material support or resources” to or receive military-type training from or on behalf of a designated FTO.
Representatives and members of a designated FTO, if they are aliens, are inadmissible to and, in certain circumstances removable from, the United States.
Except as authorised by the Secretary of the Treasury, any US financial institution that becomes aware that it has possession of or control over funds in which an FTO or its agent has an interest must retain possession of or control over the funds and report the funds to the Treasury Department.
Source: US Department of State
Know your camel milk:
Flavour: Similar to goat’s milk, although less pungent. Vaguely sweet with a subtle, salty aftertaste.
Texture: Smooth and creamy, with a slightly thinner consistency than cow’s milk.
Use it: In your morning coffee, to add flavour to homemade ice cream and milk-heavy desserts, smoothies, spiced camel-milk hot chocolate.
Goes well with: chocolate and caramel, saffron, cardamom and cloves. Also works well with honey and dates.
EXPATS
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