As Pakistan prepares to face England in a high-stakes T20 World Cup 2026 Super 8 clash at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium on February 24, 2026, the subcontinental conditions are expected to play a decisive role. With the surface likely to offer significant turn, England’s premier leg-spinner Adil Rashid looms as a major threat to the Pakistan batting lineup.

Ahead of this critical fixture, veteran Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has offered strategic advice to the Salman Ali Agha-led side, focusing on how to dismantle England’s spin duo of Rashid and Liam Dawson. Ashwin believes that the tactical blueprint for success has already been laid out by an unlikely source: the Nepal cricket team.

T20 World Cup 2026: R Ashwin lays out Pakistan’s path to success vs England in Pallekele

Ashwin has urged Pakistan to reintegrate Fakhar Zaman into their middle order, specifically to counter the threat posed by England’s spinners in the middle overs. While Zaman has had a quiet tournament thus far, Ashwin highlights his superior technical ability to handle high-quality spin through aggressive footwork and the use of the sweep shot.

By promoting the left-hander, Pakistan can disrupt the rhythm of Rashid, who has already taken eight wickets in the tournament but remains susceptible to batters who target the square boundaries. Ashwin points to Nepal’s performance on February 8, where their batters targeted Rashid relentlessly, forcing him into a wicketless spell of 0/42 in just three overs. This aggressive approach forced England into a defensive shell and nearly resulted in one of the greatest upsets in T20 World Cup history.

“If Pakistan is serious about this World Cup campaign, they need to think about giving Fakhar Zaman a go in the middle order. He can sweep and use his feet against Rashid and Dawson to inflict some serious damage through the middle overs. This was Nepal’s success formula against Rashid and there are some key learning’s that the other teams can try to imbibe. Access the square boundaries to earn balls in the step hit zone.” Ashwin wrote on X.

If Pakistan are serious about this World Cup campaign, they need to think about giving Fakhar Zaman a go in the middle order.

He can sweep and use his feet against Rashid and Dawson to inflict some serious damage through the middle overs.

This was Nepals success formulae… pic.twitter.com/QMAhQm2GZR

— Ashwin 🇮🇳 (@ashwinravi99) February 24, 2026

Also READ: ENG vs PAK, T20 World Cup 2026 Super 8: Pallekele International Cricket Stadium Pitch Report, T20I Stats and Records

Must-win Super 8 clash looms for Pakistan in T20 World Cup 2026

The clash in Pallekele is essentially a must-win for Pakistan after their opening Super 8 fixture against New Zealand was abandoned due to rain, leaving them with just a single point. England, meanwhile, enters the match with immense confidence following a 51-run demolition of Sri Lanka, where Will Jacks and Jofra Archer proved lethal in the powerplay.

Pakistan’s hopes rest on the form of Sahibzada Farhan, who leads the tournament scoring charts with 220 runs, and a spin-heavy attack featuring Usman Tariq and Abrar Ahmed. However, as Ashwin notes, the key to victory lies in the middle-order battle; if Pakistan can utilize Zaman to ‘access the step-hit zone,’ they may finally find the formula to halt England’s unbeaten run in the Super 8s.

Also READ: PAK vs ENG, T20 World Cup 2026 Super 8 Match Prediction – Who will win today’s game between Pakistan and England? 

Representative image (File photo)

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Tuesday permitted the Calcutta HC chief justice to requisition judicial officers from neighbouring Jharkhand and Odisha to help such officers in West Bengal in expeditiously scrutinising and determining validity of claims of voters falling under ‘logical discrepancy’ or ‘unmapped’ categories of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral roll process. These voters in WB have been put under the categories because of, what Election Commission (EC) considers, illogical inconsistencies in their details, documents and family tree. The order came from a bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi after the Calcutta HC CJ informed that though 294 serving and retired district judges and additional district judges have been assigned SIR work, they would take at least 80 days to scrutinise documents of 50 lakh voters in these two categories even if each judicial officer decided 250 cases a day.The bench allowed the Calcutta HC CJ to draft judicial officers in the state with three years’ experience for SIR work and said if more additional hands are required to complete the task expeditiously, then he could requisition similarly experienced judicial officers from neighbouring Jharkhand and Odisha. Significantly, the bench said EC will be publishing the final voter list on Feb 28 containing the names of all those who have been verified. However, as the process of verifying the 50 lakh voters’ documents along with claims would take some time, EC would be publishing supplementary voter lists after Feb 28.SC said the 11 documents notified by EC for SIR work as well as with Class X examination admit card along with marksheet would be considered as valid documents to claim inclusion in the voter list, while making clear yet again that Aadhaar would be used only for identification purposes.“There is no question of Aadhaar card being used to claim citizenship,” the bench said, adding that only cases of voters who have submitted their documents by Feb 14 will be verified by the judicial officers while determining their claim for inclusion in the voter list.Invoking its powers under Article 142, the bench said the supplementary voter lists would be deemed to be part of the final list published on Feb 28. Laying importance on completion of SIR of WB’s voter list, the bench said the Calcutta HC CJ would request his counterparts in Jharkhand and Orissa HCs for additional hands – civil judges with three-year experience – to help in verification of documents and claims of voters bracketed in ‘logical discrepancy’ and ‘unmapped’ categories. SC asked EC to bear the expenses towards travel, lodging and honorarium of the judicial officers who would be coming to WB from Jharkhand and Odisha. Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay told the court that most illegal migrants across India have Aadhaar cards which have been made in WB. He said the SC could give a direction to control and curb these fake Aadhaar cards.CJI said this may require a deeper probe, but this is not the time to do so. “Let the right atmosphere be there for such an exercise,” CJI Kant said. Justice Bagchi said the best way forward is for Upadhyay to make a representation to solicitor general Tushar Mehta who could in turn forward it to the Union govt for appropriate action and amend the Representation of the People Act.Justice Bagchi said, “If Aadhaar is procured fraudulently on an industrial scale as you are alleging, then it requires to be statutorily regulated. Because the RP Act was amended and Aadhaar was brought in as a document which will prove identity. We must acknowledge that.” “We have already clarified that Aadhaar is for identity purposes. So, there is no question of citizenship being canvassed through Aadhaar,” he said.

No question of Aadhaar being used to claim citizenship: Supreme Court

The order came from a bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi after the Calcutta HC CJ informed SC that though 294 serving and retired district judges and additional district judges have been assigned SIR work, they would take at least 80 days to scrutinise documents of 50 lakh voters even if each judicial officer decided 250 cases a day.The bench allowed the Calcutta HC CJ to draft judicial officers in the state with three years’ experience for SIR work and said that if more additional hands are required to complete the task expeditiously, he could requisition similarly experienced judicial officers from neighbouring Jharkhand and Odisha.Significantly, SC said EC will publish final voter list on Feb 28 containing the names of all those who have been verified. However, as the process of verifying the 50 lakh voters’ documents along with claims would take some time, EC would publish supplementary voter lists after Feb 28.SC said the 11 documents notified by EC, as well as Class X exam admit card along with the marksheet, would be considered valid to claim inclusion in the voter list, while making clear yet again that Aadhaar would be used only for identification purposes.“There is no question of Aadhaar being used to claim citizenship,” SC said, adding that only cases of voters who have submitted their documents by Feb 14 will be verified by the judicial officers while determining their claim for inclusion in the voter list.Invoking its extraordinary powers under Article 142, the CJI-led bench said that the supplementary voter lists would be deemed to be part of the final list published on Feb 28.SC asked EC to bear the expenses towards lodging and honorarium of the judicial officers who would be coming from Jharkhand and Odisha.Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay told SC that most illegal migrants have Aadhaar cards that have been made in WB. He said the SC could give a direction to control and curb these fake Aadhaar cards.The CJI said this may require a deeper probe, but this is not the time to do so. Justice Bagchi said the best way forward is for Upadhyay to make a representation to SG Tushar Mehta, who could in turn forward it to the Union govt for appropriate action.

Judges on SIR work get bomb threats

Hoax emails threatening suicide bomb attacks and RDX blasts were sent Tuesday to district judges supervising SIR verification work in Kolkata, West Burdwan, Hooghly and Murshidabad, prompting drills in at least six courts. Searches found nothing. Bengal Chief secretary Nandini Chakravorty termed the threat a hoax.

Steve Bucknor and Sachin Tendulkar. (Pic Credit – X)

The younger generation may not fully grasp the impact West Indies umpire Steve Bucknor had on Indian cricket fans and Sachin Tendulkar. Now 79, Bucknor was one of the most respected umpires of his time, officiating over 120 Test matches and serving in multiple World Cups. However, he is still remembered for several controversial decisions against Tendulkar, often in the biggest matches.One of the most famous incidents was during the Brisbane Test between India and Australia in 2003–04. Tendulkar, at the peak of his career, was given out LBW by Bucknor after a loud appeal from Jason Gillespie, Adam Gilchrist, and the Australian team. Tendulkar was dismissed for just three runs in the first innings—a huge shock to fans.

Now, 22 years later, Bucknor has admitted he made a mistake. He said Tendulkar should not have been given out because the ball was clearly missing the stumps. This confession confirms what fans have long believed about one of cricket’s most controversial decisions.“Giving Sachin Tendulkar out leg before wicket, and it’s a matter of knowing that it was a mistake, but until this day, every day, people talk about it,” Bucknor said in an interview with the West Indies Cricket Umpires’ Association.“Why did I give him out? Was he out and so on? But then in life, mistakes happen. I have accepted that it was a mistake, and life goes on,” he added.How did the dismissal come about?During that dismissal, Sachin Tendulkar tried to leave the ball, but it struck his pads. Jason Gillespie and the Australian team appealed, and the experienced umpire Steve Bucknor gave him out. However, he clearly misjudged the ball’s height. Tendulkar had misread the delivery, leaving his arms across, as the ball pitched outside off and swung sharply back in line.When Bucknor raised his finger, Tendulkar looked shocked and couldn’t believe the decision. Commentator Tony Greig called it a “dreadful decision” live on air. Replays later showed the ball would have gone well above the stumps, proving Bucknor’s call was a major error that ended Tendulkar’s innings prematurely.“That is a dreadful decision. Have a look at this, look at the bounce and movement,” Greig had said then.

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Tuesday said some mechanism needs to be devised, not necessarily punitive, to make voting compulsory so that democracy gets stronger by attracting more eligible people to contest elections and render Nota option redundant. A bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said the Nota option was devised to attract better candidates to the fray and to encourage voters to exercise their franchise. The decade-long experience shows that a minuscule percentage of voters exercised the option, the bench said.These observations came from the bench which was hearing a PIL by Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy which argued for making Nota a candidate in the constituencies where only one candidate is in the fray to find out whether the lone contestant had the confidence of voters.Senior advocate Arvind Datar said that putting Nota on the ballot as a candidate would discourage the candidates with money and muscle power to make their opponents withdraw from the contest. The bench pointed out that to make Nota a candidate, Parliament would be required to carry out an amendment to the Representation of People Act. Attorney general R Venktaramani said when voting is not a fundamental right how could a PIL under Article 32, which is the recourse to approach SC directly in case of violation of fundamental rights, be maintainable.

Senior advocate Arvind Datar said putting Nota on the ballot as a candidate would discourage the candidates with money and muscle power to make their opponents withdraw from the contest.Attorney general R Venktaramani said when voting is not a fundamental right how could a PIL under Article 32, which is the recourse to approach SC directly in case of violation of fundamental rights, be maintainable.“Let judiciary not decide what amendments are to be carried out in the RP Act. It is for Parliament to decide if any deficiency is required to be remedied or any amendment is to be carried out in a statute,” said the attorney general.The bench said it is the educated and well-off people who do not come out in large numbers to vote, which is in stark contrast to the people in rural areas where voting day resembles a festival that everyone celebrates by exercising their franchise.Govt in its affidavit had opposed the PIL and said, “Nota option is not a person which has been duly nominated at any election, hence cannot be held to be a candidate under Representation of People Act, 1951. ‘Nota’ ought not to be given an artificial personality. ‘Nota’ is merely an option or an expression and does not fit within definition of ‘candidate’.”

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz has fired back at fears that Anthropic’s new AI security tool could eat into his company’s business—by sharing what happened when he asked Claude itself to replace CrowdStrike. The move comes after Anthropic’s Claude Code Security launch wiped roughly a fifth off CrowdStrike’s market cap across two brutal trading sessions, dragging the wider cybersecurity sector down with it.Claude said no.“I have to be straightforward: building a replacement for CrowdStrike isn’t something I can do here,” the AI chatbot responded, according to a screenshot Kurtz posted on LinkedIn. Claude went on to describe CrowdStrike’s Falcon platform as “a massive platform built by thousands of engineers over a decade-plus,” citing its real-time kernel-level monitoring and proprietary threat intelligence graph as things that can’t be “replicated with a script.“Kurtz added his own punchline: “If you want to create AI, you need GPUs. If you want to deploy AI, you need security. That’s not a hallucination—it’s a fact.”

Anthropic’s Claude Code Security tool triggered a sharp sell-off across the cybersecurity sector

The CEO’s response comes after Anthropic’s announcement of Claude Code Security on February 20 sent cybersecurity stocks tumbling. The tool, currently in a limited research preview, scans codebases for security vulnerabilities and suggests patches for human review. Anthropic says its Claude Opus 4.6 model has already found over 500 vulnerabilities in production open-source codebases—bugs that went undetected for decades.CrowdStrike shares dropped roughly 8% on Friday and fell another 10% on Monday. Across the sector, Okta lost over 9%, SailPoint shed about 9%, Cloudflare slumped over 8%, and Zscaler dropped around 5.5%. The Global X Cybersecurity ETF fell to its lowest level since November 2023.

Analysts say the sell-off is overblown since the AI tool doesn’t handle real-time threat detection

Several analysts have pushed back on the panic. Bank of America noted that Anthropic’s tool primarily threatens code scanning platforms like GitLab and JFrog—not endpoint protection or identity management vendors. Robert W. Baird analyst Shrenik Kothari called it “a panic-driven, narrative-led selloff,” pointing out that Claude Code Security doesn’t handle live intrusion detection, active threat response, or runtime security.Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora echoed that sentiment on a recent earnings call, saying he was “confused” why the market viewed AI as a threat to cybersecurity rather than a tailwind.

CrowdStrike has lost roughly a fifth of its market cap in just two trading sessions

Still, the broader software sector remains under pressure. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF is down more than 23% this year, on pace for its worst quarterly drop since 2008. Jefferies analyst Joseph Gallo expects “headline headwinds to intensify” before the cybersecurity sector finds its footing, but maintains that the industry will ultimately be a net winner from AI adoption.For now, Kurtz is betting that Claude’s own words make the best case for his company’s durability.

The Pallekele International Cricket Stadium is bracing for a high-octane T20 World Cup 2026 Super 8 encounter as Pakistan and England face off in a match that could define their semi-final trajectories.

Coming off a frustrating washout in Colombo against New Zealand, Pakistan captain Salman Ali Agha won the toss and elected to bat first, citing the need to set an ‘above-par total’ on a pitch that has historically favored the side setting the target. With the sun beating down on a fresh surface, England captain Harry Brook admitted he would have also preferred to bat first but remains confident in his side’s ability to chase down any total on what looks like a classic batting-friendly track.

T20 World Cup 2026: Reason why Faheem Ashraf is not playing today’s PAK vs ENG game

The headline news from the Pakistan camp is the return of their premier fast bowler, Shaheen Afridi, who replaces Faheem Ashraf in the only change from the side named for the rained-off game. Captain Salman Ali Agha clarified that while Faheem has been a reliable all-round option, the decision to bring back Shaheen was a strategic move to bolster the early-innings wicket-taking threat against England’s explosive top order. Agha noted that the team’s balance remains strong, stating:

“From the rained-off game, Faheem misses out and Shaheen comes back into the side. We have a strong spin attack, but our fast bowling is just as good. Depending on the situation, I can go either way. This being my first ICC tournament as captain, it’s obviously a responsibility, but I’m enjoying it and really looking forward to the challenge.”

Also READ: ‘If Pakistan are serious about T20 World Cup’: R Ashwin’s masterplan to neutralise England’s spin threat in Pallekele

T20 World Cup 2026: A must-win Super 8 game for the men in green in Pallekele

The road through the T20 World Cup 2026 has been a game of momentum and weather-watching for both sides. England enters this fixture at the top of Group 2, having already secured a clinical 51-run victory over Sri Lanka, where Will Jacks and Jofra Archer dismantled the hosts. For Pakistan, the journey has been more precarious; after a solid group stage, the “No Result” against New Zealand has left them with just one point, making today’s game a virtual knockout. A loss would leave Pakistan relying on complex mathematical scenarios and other results to reach the semi-finals.

The rivalry adds another layer of pressure, as Pakistan have never beaten England in their three previous T20 World Cup meetings. However, with Sahibzada Farhan leading the tournament run-scoring charts and a spin-heavy attack designed to exploit the Pallekele grip, Pakistan is banking on their familiarity with Sri Lankan conditions to break the curse. For Brook’s England, a win tonight would secure their spot in the semi-finals with a game to spare, while for Pakistan, it is a fight to keep their World Cup dreams alive before their final Super 8 clash against Sri Lanka.

Also READ: ENG vs PAK, T20 World Cup 2026 Super 8: Pallekele International Cricket Stadium Pitch Report, T20I Stats and Records

NEW DELHI: What slows down a court case, why public trust in courts matters, and how corruption can affect access to justice are now questions Class 8 students will encounter in their civics textbook, with the latest NCERT social science book explicitly listing corruption, massive case pendency and shortage of judges as challenges facing India’s judicial system.The revised chapter, titled ‘The Role of the Judiciary in Our Society’, forms part of the new class VIII social science textbook released by the National Council of Educational Research and Training. Unlike earlier editions that focused largely on the structure of courts, judicial independence and access to justice, the updated chapter includes a detailed section on the problems confronting the judicial system.The book states that “people do experience corruption at various levels of the judiciary” and notes that for “the poor and the disadvantaged, this can worsen the issue of access to justice”. It adds that efforts are being made at both State and Union levels to “build faith and increase transparency in the judicial system, including through the use of technology, and to take swift and decisive action against instances of corruption wherever they may arise”.Highlighting the scale of pendency, the textbook pegs pending cases at around 81,000 in the Supreme Court, 62.4 lakh in high courts, and 4.7 crore in district and subordinate courts. It attributes the backlog of cases to several factors, including an inadequate number of judges, complicated legal procedures and weak infrastructure.A separate section in the civics chapter explains that judges are bound by a code of conduct governing their behaviour both inside and outside courtrooms.It refers to internal accountability mechanisms and an established procedure for receiving complaints through the Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS), noting that more than 1,600 complaints were received between 2017 and 2021.The chapter also quotes former Chief Justice of India B R Gavai, who in July 2025 said that instances of corruption and misconduct within the judiciary “inevitably have a negative impact on public confidence”. “However, the path to rebuilding this trust lies in the swift, decisive and transparent action taken to address and resolve these issues… Transparency and accountability are democratic virtues,” he is quoted as saying.