MELBOURNE: India will continue to target Australia’s under-pressure openers Alex Carey and Aaron Finch as they seek to add a One-day International rubber win to their first-ever Test series victory in the third and final match in Melbourne on Friday. Carey and Finch’s best opening partnership in the first two matches of the series is the 20 runs they achieved …

MELBOURNE: Serena Williams stepped up her drive for a record-equalling 24th Grand Slam on Thursday by swatting aside Eugenie Bouchard, as world number one Novak Djokovic won an emotional 2008 Aust­r­alian Open final rematch with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. But women’s top seed Simona Halep and young gun Alexander Zverev had to dig deep to make the third round on a day …

THE year 2018 was a complete disaster for Pakistan hockey, both on and off the field. It started with humiliation in tri-series at Muscat and ended in the same fashion at Bhubaneswar World Cup. In between, there was a brief spell of slight improvement under Dutch coach Roelant Oltmans but that did not last long. Though the 12th-position finish in …

LAHORE: All star cricketers will come to Pakistan to play in the eight matches of the fourth Pakistan Super League (PSL) scheduled for Karachi and Lahore, chairman of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Ehsan Mani said here on Thursday. The PSL matches will be staged from Feb 14 to March 17 at three venues — Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi — …

KARACHI: The Sindh Provincial Development Working Party (PDWP) on Thursday approved nine schemes worth Rs10.310 billion. The meeting was chaired by Chairman Planning and Development Board Muhammad Waseem. One scheme worth Rs210.307 million was approved for plan period extension including establishment of Women Development Complex at Sukkur. One scheme each has been earmarked for Livestock and Fisheries and Forest and …

KARACHI: The government is determined to facilitate introduction of new products in the capital market, said Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) Chairman Farrukh Sabzwari. Mr Sabzwari, along with other SECP officials, had his first interaction with members of the management of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) and stockbrokers on Thursday. He assured that the government was interested in making …

KARACHI: Reserves held by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) dropped by $148 million during the week ended on Jan 11 on account of debt servicing and other official payments. The SBP reserves fell to $6.9 billion — their lowest level since April 11, 2014 when they hit a trough of $4.984bn. The dollar stocks of central bank have breached …

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s oil import bill jumped nearly 15 per cent year-on-year to $7.6 billion during 1HFY19 from $6.675bn in same period last year, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics reported on Thursday. The country’s petroleum bill is steadily on the rise despite the fall in international prices. The government has taken several measures to cut import bill in a bid to ease …

KARACHI: The government found another reason to sigh with relief on Thursday as the crucial current account deficit (CAD) slipped slightly by 4.4 per cent to $7.98 billion, driven by a fourth quarter decline of 10 per cent, according to data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). The CAD lies at the heart of the economy’s difficulties since …

Several hundred protesters marched in three cities in southern and eastern Afghanistan to call for a ceasefire and an end to the 17-year war Thursday, the latest action of a movement launched in May 2018. In Kandahar, the southern cradle of the Taliban, and in the eastern cities of Khost and Jalalabad, they marched holding placards saying: “No War”, “We …