GENEVA: Olympic tennis champion Belinda Bencic has tested positive for Covid-19 after her trip to Abu Dhabi and has “severe symptoms”, she said on Tuesday, a day after Rafael Nadal announced he had also tested positive. Both players had travelled to Abu Dhabi to play in the Mubadala World Tennis Championship exhibition event last week. Nadal also said he was having …

MELBOURNE: Australia added fast bowler Scott Boland to their squad for the potentially Ashes-clinching Boxing Day Test against England starting on Sunday in Melbourne amid concerns over Mitchell Starc’s fitness after he tweaked his back in the second match. Starc sustained the injury while batting in Adelaide but still claimed six wickets in the pink ball contest to help Australia …

JOHANNESBURG: Test captain Dean Elgar says he will not let the allegations of racist conduct that have come to light at Cricket South Africa in recent months become an excuse for failure as his side prepare to host India in a three-match series from Sunday. Director of cricket Graeme Smith, who denies the claims, and national team coach Mark Boucher were among …

DHAKA: Pakistan got off to the perfect start but couldn’t get the ideal finish. In an end-to-end semi-final of the Asian Champions Trophy, Pakistan ended up on the losing side of an 11-goal thriller against South Korea at the Maulana Bhasani Hockey Stadium here on Tuesday. South Korea’s 6-5 win set up a title clash for them against Japan, who …

India’s third-highest Test wicket-taker Ravichandran Ashwin says that he nearly quit several times between 2018 and 2020 due to injury and because he did not “feel backed”. “I contemplated retirement for a lot of reasons,” the star spinner told ESPNcricinfo. “I felt like people were not sensitive enough to my injuries. I felt like a lot of people were backed, why …

Pakistan skipper Babar Azam has again reclaimed the top spot in the latest International Cricket Council (ICC) Men’s T20 International (T20I) Batting Rankings, a week after slipping to second place behind Englishman David Malan. After the latest update by the ICC, Azam now shares the number one rank with Malan, both having a rating of 805 points. “With scores of 0 …

KARACHI: Trading on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) remained choppy on Tuesday as the news of the monthly current account deficit widening to $1.3 billion dampened investors’ sentiments. The volume of shares traded was subdued while trading patterns were sideways as the market witnessed hefty volumes in third-tier stocks, according to Arif Habib Ltd. Profit-taking occurred in the first trading …

The federal government and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Wednesday signed six agreements amounting to $1.543 billion to finance projects related to the energy sector, urban infrastructure, social protection, roads and water resources, the Ministry of Economic Affairs in a statement. The agreements were signed by Economic Affairs Division Secretary Mian Asad Hayaud Din and ADB’s Country Director Yong …

ISLAMABAD: Both the houses of parliament are set to begin their winter sessions from Wednesday (today) as the government plans to present a “mini-budget” involving fiscal adjustments and expenditure cuts worth about Rs600 billion as part of an understanding with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and opposition parties vow to resist the move with full force. The Ministry of Finance …