A Bangladesh Cricket Board official confirmed that umpire Sharfuddoula Ibne Shahid Saikat is currently in India for the ongoing ODI series between India and New Zealand. He is officiating as a match official, and the board clarified that his presence in India is part of his duties as an ICC-appointed umpire for the series.

Saikat became the first umpire from Bangladesh to earn a place on the ICC Elite Panel. He has steadily built a strong reputation in international cricket as a top-level umpire. Saikat now regularly officiates in some of the biggest series in the world, including high-profile contests like the Ashes and other Test matches.

India-Bangladesh Cricket Ties Strained After Mustafizur Rahman’s Release

Cricket relations between India and Bangladesh have been strained after Mustafizur Rahman was released from the Kolkata Knight Riders’ IPL 2026 squad following instructions from the Indian cricket board. The sudden decision upset Bangladesh officials and players.

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Notably, the Bangladesh Cricket Board raised concerns about the safety of its players in India. The board informed the ICC that it is not ready to tour India for the upcoming events, including the T20 World Cup. Bangladesh also took steps, such as stopping IPL telecasts, to show its displeasure.

The issue gained wider attention as ICC officials held meetings in Mumbai to discuss the growing dispute. Bangladesh officials described Mustafizur’s release as unfair and influenced by political pressure rather than cricketing reasons.

Amid the controversy, many were surprised to see Bangladeshi umpire Sharfuddoula Ibne Shahid Saikat officiating in India during the ODI series against New Zealand, despite Bangladesh’s strong stance on security concerns.

ICC Contract Allows Saikat to Officiate Without BCB NOC

Sharfuddoula Ibne Shahid Saikat does not need special permission from the board to officiate matches outside the country. BCB umpire department chairman Iftekhar Rahman said that Saikat works directly under an ICC contract, and the BCB has no role whenever the ICC assigns him a match.

“He (Saikat) is ICC contracted umpire and we are saying this clearly that he is not contracted with us (BCB),” said Iftekhar, as quoted by Cricbuzz.

“Now, in our contract it is written that when he has any ICC assignment, he will automatically be on leave from us. It will be an automatic leave and I don’t need to give any NOC. In the job contract he has with me, it is written that if he has any ICC engagement, he must be automatically released. There is no authority for me to decide whether I give permission or not,” he added.

ICC Yet to Decide on Bangladesh’s T20 World Cup 2026 Match Venues

The T20 World Cup is set to begin on February 7, and Bangladesh are currently scheduled to play all four of their group matches in India. Three of those games are planned in Kolkata, while one match is set to be played in Mumbai.

Bangladesh have said they are not willing to travel to India due to security concerns. The International Cricket Council has not responded publicly so far and has asked Bangladesh to clearly explain the issues being raised.

Notably, the ICC has not shown any indication of shifting Bangladesh’s matches from India to Sri Lanka. However, the Bangladesh Cricket Board has said the ICC is open to discussions and willing to work with them to review the concerns. No final decision has been taken yet.

Also read: Pakistan declares itself T20 World Cup 2026 co-host, hijacks India’s Bangladesh matches

US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the US military was studying “very strong options” for a potential military action against Iran, amid reports of deadly crackdowns against the country’s mounting anti-government protests.Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump suggested Iran may have crossed a red line he had previously set regarding the killing of protesters. “They’re starting to, it looks like,” he said when asked if that line had been crossed.“Some people, who were not supposed to be killed, have been killed… If you talk about leaders, I don’t know if they are leaders or just rule through violence… But we and the military are looking at it very seriously, and we are looking at some very strong options…We’ll make a determination,” he added.Trump’s comments came as nationwide protests against Iran’s leadership entered their third week. Demonstrators once again filled the streets of Tehran and Mashhad, the country’s two largest cities, amid escalating violence. Rights groups monitoring the unrest say at least 538 people have been killed so far.Meanwhile, Iran on Sunday issued a stark warning, saying US military bases in the region and Israel would be considered “legitimate targets” if Washington launches an attack on the Islamic Republic.The threat was delivered by Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf as lawmakers surged toward the dais in parliament chanting, “Death to America!”Qalibaf said the government would respond forcefully to the unrest, declaring: “The people of Iran should know that we will deal with them in the most severe way and punish those who are arrested.”He also issued a direct warning to Israel, which he referred to as “the occupied territory,” and to US forces in the region, raising the possibility of preemptive action.“In the event of an attack on Iran, both the occupied territory and all American military centers, bases and ships in the region will be our legitimate targets,” Qalibaf said. “We do not consider ourselves limited to reacting after the action and will act based on any objective signs of a threat.”Protests continued overnight and were described as more intense and widespread than the 2022 hijab demonstrations. Around 192 people were reported killed by Sunday morning, though the true toll remains unclear due to an ongoing internet blackout. Senior regime officials signaled a hardening stance, with some suggesting protesters should face the death penalty, while another likened them to terrorists.

NEW DELHI: A new audio recording, purportedly featuring Maulana Masood Azhar, the elusive chief of the terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), surfaced on social media, boasting that his organisation now commands “thousands” of suicide bombers prepared for immediate deployment.The clip surfaced at a time when Pahalgam mastermind and Lashkar-e-Taiba’s deputy chief Saifullah Kasuri was captured on video claiming that the Pakistan army invited him to lead funeral prayers of its own soldiers after Operation Sindoor last May. Both clips were posted on Telegram and X by pro-ISI accounts.The messages are being viewed as a desperate propaganda attempt to revitalise a group reeling from devastating losses inflicted by Indian security forces during Operation Sindoor. Kasuri’s speech was made from a school, with hundreds of children visible in the audience, while Azhar too seemingly addressed a public gathering, sources said.

The latest recording features a defiant Azhar claiming that the sheer number of his followers would “cause an uproar in the global media” if fully revealed. He asserted that these recruits are driven by a fanatical obsession with “martyrdom”, explicitly stating that they do not seek material comforts like cars, motorcycles, or foreign visas.“They only ask Allah for 1 thing: martyrdom,” the UN-designated terrorist claimed, attempting to project a picture of high morale and spiritual conviction among his cadres.However, defence experts suggested this was little more than a “hollow threat” and a sign of severe frustration arising out of Operation Sindoor, a series of precision strikes by India in May 2025 that decimated JeM’s infrastructure and eliminated at least 10 of Azhar’s close relatives and top aides in Bahawalpur.“This audio appears to be a calculated effort to save face after the group’s leadership was “torn to pieces”, as recently admitted by other JeM commanders,” said a source.Interestingly, Masood Azhar was not seen in public since a 2019 blast at his Bahawalpur hideout, leading to persistent rumours about his health and location. This latest audio, while lacking visual proof of his life, indicates that the terror mastermind is still attempting to operate from the shadows, deep within a safe haven in Pakistan.Security agencies are now closely analysing the voice samples and metadata of the clip to track its origin and assess the current threat level posed by the group’s surviving sleeper cells, sources said.

GURGAON: The road to justice can be long. This one cut through nearly 500 villages in Haryana and UP in a search that took five months and burnt more than 10,000km worth of fuel.This was a search to find Anil, a man accused of kidnapping a teenager, making him work as a bonded labourer and torturing him. It began last July after the boy – frail and maimed – was found by locals in Badoli village of Palwal.The 15-year-old has his left arm missing. He was dumped in the middle of nowhere and told to go. Anil, a dairy and water was all he could remember of his captor. He had one more piece of information, that Anil had two daughters, Riya and Siya.Locals alerted police and a PCR van took him to hospital in Nuh. When he was being prepared for surgery, he escaped barefoot and without clothes. In acute pain, the boy climbed into a hilly area and reached Tauru in Nuh and took shelter at a deserted bus stop late at night. He walked back towards Nuh city, where a teacher found him, took him to a local health centre and informed police. His family in Bihar’s Kishanganj was contacted.It took a while for the boy to get over his trauma and reveal his ordeal. “The victim was so traumatised he didn’t initially reveal what happened to him to Palwal or Nuh police,” a Govt Railway Police (GRP) source said. “It was only after a local newspaper in Rohtak published a report about his plight that we got the alert at Bahadurgarh.”GRP filed a case under 75, 79 of Juvenile Justice (care and protection of children) Act, 2015 and under BNS sections 118(2) (voluntarily causing grievous hurt using dangerous weapons or means), 125 (rashness or negligence that endanger human life or personal safety), 127(4) (wrongful confinement for ten days or more), 137 (kidnapping), 146 (unlawful compulsory labour), 289 ( negligent conduct with respect to machinery) and 3(5) (act done by multiple persons) because the boy had gone missing from Bahadurgarh railway station in Jhajjar on May 27.He had got off to find water, wandered too far, and missed his train, Farakka Express, that he was taking from Jind to his native place with his father and brother.When the GRP unit gleaned the details, they were shaken. They learnt the boy’s left arm was shredded in a fodder-cutter and the severed limb was thrown into a waterbody. Soon after the accident, the bleeding minor was driven for hours along highways and then left to cope on his own in Haryana. The captor had not taken him to hospital, just left him there with Rs 7,500 in cash.The boy left his Kishanganj home to work in Kangra in Himachal Pradesh. But when he wished to come back, his father Rishidev and brother Kailash went to Kangra to bring him back. They were on their way to Kishanganj in Farakka Express when the boy separated from them when he got off at Bahadurgarh.On July 29, Rishidev got a call from Nuh police, saying his son had been admitted at PGI Rohtak the next day. “We were devastated to see him in such a miserable condition. He told me that his employer and his family didn’t give him proper food or let him wear slippers,” Rishidev said in his police statement.By Nov, the boy had undergone three surgeries. But the search for Anil went nowhere. The family lost hope and took him back to Kishanganj.The GRP unit, however, did not quit. They had determined they would do whatever they could to get justice to a boy no one really was looking out for.While he recovered, GRP officials had begun reaching out to sarpanches with the clues they had – dairy owner Anil, two daughters Riya and Siya. They began with Haryana districts, mapped out possible areas based on his description of a waterbody. Initially, the search focused on villages around stormwater drains. Parallelly, GRP approached the Haryana education department, CBSE and other state boards to scan enrolment records for any Anil with daughters Riya and Siya. This digital sweep zeroed in on 20 potential matches. Cops visited every single one of them, but none owned a dairy.A breakthrough eventually came during one of the searches in Nov, an official recalled, when the boy was accompanying a GRP team in Delhi and pointed to silt along Yamuna banks. “He said Anil’s farm had the same soil,” the official said. GRP teams now knew they had to look along the Yamuna.GRP teams began scanning villages along Yamuna in Haryana, Delhi and UP to look for Anil. Often, officials said, they exceeded sanctioned spending on fuel, so the investigators paid out of their own pockets to keep the search going. On Dec 30, the GRP finally found the Anil they were looking for, a 28-year-old dairy owner at Motipur village of Greater Noida.Led by SP Nitika Gahlaut and inspector Satya Prakash, GRP teams from Ambala, Rohtak, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Panipat and Sonipat were involved in the pursuit on Anil. They leant that Anil had thrown the boy’s arm into the river and driven him to Palwal 100km away.Anil told police he “got frightened” after the accident. “The accused had gone to a colony near Bahadurgarh railway station when he saw the tearful boy and decided to take him with him for work,” a source said.For police, it was all about clinging to hope. “We wanted to get justice for a kid who lost his arm and was abandoned in pain on a road. Though the family gave up hope, our SP Nitika Gahlaut encouraged us to nab the accused even when all resources were exhausted,” said Satya Prakash, who led the trail despite his transfer to Ambala.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru Women will face the UP Warriorz Women in the fifth match of the fourth edition of the Women’s Premier League. This article provides details about Royal Challengers Bengaluru Women’s Playing 11 vs UP Warriorz Women for the upcoming match.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru Women Playing XI vs UP Warriorz Women- Women’s Premier League 2026, Match 5:

Openers: Smriti Mandhana (c), Grace Harris

RCB Women would want to build on the win that they registered against the MI Women when they take on the UP Warriorz Women in the second match and consolidate their position in the points table in the early stage of the tournament.

Along with winning, the Smriti Mandana-led side would hope to win in a convincing fashion, having clinched a win on the last ball against the MI Women.

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The responsibility will be on the openers to get the team off to a good start and allow the incoming batters to capitalize on the start given by them.

The pair of Smriti Mandhana and Grace Harris will be entrusted to get the job done both in partnership and as individual batters, also in order to gain confidence for the matches to come.

Middle-order batsmen and all-rounders: Dayalan Hemalatha, Richa Ghosh (wk), Radha Yadav, Nadine de Klerk, Arundhati Reddy

The openers will be followed by. middle order, which comprises Dayalan Hemalatha, Richa Ghosh, Radha Yadav, and Nadine de Klerk.

All eyes will be on Richa Ghosh to get into her element and take on the bowling attack of the UP Warriorz Women, especially the spin bowling duo of Deepti Sharma and Sophie Ecclestone.

Other than Richa Ghosh, the onus will be on Nadine de Klerk to replicate the performance she delivers against MI Women in the tournament opener and get her team beyond the finish line.

The pair of Richa and Nadine would also hope for other batters to provide them good support against the likes of Kranti Gaud and Deepti Sharma, so as to make things easy for them in the match in question in the ongoing season of the WPL.

Bowlers: Shreyanka Patil, Prema Rawat, Linsey Smith, Lauren Bell

The bowlers did a fine job by restricting the MI Women batters to a below-par total in the first match and would be backed to do the same against the UP Warriorz Women, who possess a strong batting lineup that almost pulled off a chase against the Gujarat Giants.

If the bowlers are able to restrict UP Warriorz Women to a total of around 180-190 runs, they will give their batters a strong chance of chasing the target down, with dew expected to settle in in the second innings

Lauren Bell will be given the responsibility of picking wickets with the new ball in the first six overs, making the job for the spinners a bit easier.

The spinners will then have to take control of the proceedings in the middle overs by keeping the opposition batters in check by providing breakthroughs at regular intervals.