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India named top-order batsman Shubman Gill as the new Test captain, the cricket board said Saturday, as it announced the team for next month’s all-important tour of England.Gill, 25, succeeds Rohit Sharma, who retired from Tests recently along with Virat Kohli. He will take charge in the five-Test series in England starting June 20.Gill will lead a team in transition after Rohit, 38, and Kohli, 36, walked away from the five-day format in the space of six days this month to leave a big void.”Shubman Gill-led TeamIndia are READY for an action-packed Test series,” the Board of Control for Cricket in India said in a statement.His vice-captain will be Rishabh Pant.Gifted with a wide range of shots, Gill has led Gujarat Titans into the playoffs of the current Indian Premier League T20 tournament.”Obviously, he’s very young but we’ve seen the improvement,” chief selector Ajit Agarkar told reporters after the team announcement in Mumbai.He said that, as well as Gill’s IPL performances, the board “take feedback from a lot of people” and the choice was a “unanimous decision”.”It’s obviously going to be a high-pressure job. But we’re hopeful that we’ve picked the right guy. I mean, he’s a terrific player,” Agarkar said.”It’s a big job, big transition,” he said, especially with “two of our big players retiring”.”We were all confident that he is the guy to take us forward”, he said.- Shami ‘setback’ -However, pace bowler Mohammed Shami has been left out of the 18-member squad due to fitness concerns, Agarkar said.”He’s had a little bit of a setback over the last week or so,” Agarkar said, adding medical scans had ruled Shami out for the series.Pace bowler Jasprit Bumrah is in the squad, although he will not be able to play all five Tests. Bumrah’s workload is being managed while he recovers from a career-threatening back injury — a key reason for him not getting the Test captaincy.Bumrah was Rohit’s deputy in India’s last Test tour of Australia.Fast bowler Mohammed Siraj returns after he was dropped from the ODI team for the Champions Trophy this year.Batsman Karun Nair, who hit an unbeaten 303 against England in Chennai in 2016, will make a comeback eight years after he last played a Test for India.Gill’s opening partner at Gujarat, Sai Sudharsan, who leads the IPL batting chart with 638 runs, also made the cut.Agarkar said coach Gautam Gambhir and Gill will decide the batting order and who will replace Rohit and Kohli as opener and number two batter.Gill has played 32 Tests, scoring 1,893 runs at an average of 35.05, with five hundreds, since his debut in Melbourne in 2020.He has been a mainstay of India’s batting in Test and ODI cricket and played a key role in the team’s 50-overs Champions Trophy title in Dubai this year.The Tests in England will be India’s first in the 2025-27 World Test Championship cycle.The opener is at Headingley, followed by the second Test at Edgbaston from July 2.Lord’s hosts the third Test from July 10, with the fourth at Old Trafford beginning July 23 and the final Test at The Oval from July 31.Squad: Shubman Gill (capt), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (vice-capt, wk), Dhruv Jurel (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Sai Sudharsan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Arshdeep Singh.

Shubman Gill, long Indian cricket’s “Prince” in waiting, has been entrusted with leading a new era after the Test retirements of greats Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli.The 25-year-old Gill was identified in 2020 as a batting successor to Kohli after impressing on his Test debut in Melbourne, where he opened and made 45 and an unbeaten 35 as India beat Australia by eight wickets.Gifted with a wide variety of shots at the top of the order, it has been Gill’s inspiring leadership of Gujarat Titans that clinched his elevation to the Test captaincy to succeed Rohit.Gill played a captain’s knock of 93 this week to secure a place in the playoffs for Gujarat, who were IPL champions in their 2022 debut season.”I have talked about this a couple of times, when I’m batting, I want to play and think as a batsman, not as a captain. At the back end last season I learnt that,” said Gill, who is in his second season leading Gujarat.Gill, who has scored 636 runs at an average of 57.81 to lie second on the IPL batting charts, has led from the front and been dubbed “Prince” by pundits in the cricket-obsessed country.”Let Shubman Gill remain Shubman Gill instead of calling him a ‘Prince’,” said former India wicketkeeper and Gujarat assistant coach Parthiv Patel.”You gave him this name from the commentary box. He is leading from the front and makes his presence felt in the dressing room. “He doesn’t talk much, but his words carry a lot of weight.”Rohit and batting great Kohli’s departures paved the way for Gill to lead a young India squad for five Tests in England beginning on June 20.Other candidates included Jasprit Bumrah, who was Rohit’s deputy in Australia this year, Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul.- Competitive instinct -Gill got the nod but he has big boots to fill.Rohit won 12 of his 24 Tests as skipper and his predecessor Kohli was India’s most successful Test captain with 40 wins from 68 matches in charge.Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar had already identified Gill’s leadership credentials and competitive instinct ahead of his appointment, and he urged fans to give him time.”It would take a couple of years to get to the level of our ‘super captains’,” said Gavaskar.”All of them brought something unique to the table.”When you look at Gill, Iyer, and Pant… you can see a mix of different qualities. “Gill seems the most competitive. When there’s a close call, he’s quick to question the umpire. He’s very involved in the game.”In 2023, Gill scored a Twenty20 hundred to become the fifth Indian batsman — including Kohli and Rohit — to record centuries across all three formats.Gill, who hails from a family of farmers in the northern state of Punjab, said he owed much of his success to his father.”I think the way I practise and the way my dad made me practise… 90 percent of the credit should go to him because it was his vision,” said Gill.Gill has played 32 Tests, scoring 1,893 runs at an average of 35.05 with five hundreds. But there are question marks over his record outside India. In his 13 overseas Tests, Gill’s average is only 29.50.

Bangladesh’s interim leader, who took over after a mass uprising last year, will meet powerful parties pressuring his government later on Saturday, days after he reportedly threatened to quit.Muhammad Yunus, the 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner who leads the caretaker government as its chief adviser until elections are held, has called for rival political parties jostling for power to give him their full support.His press secretary Shafiqul Alam confirmed Yunus would meet leaders of the powerful Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), as well as leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, the Muslim-majority nation’s largest Islamist party.”He is meeting BNP and Jamaat leaders this evening,” Alam told AFP.No agenda for the talks has been released.But the BNP, seen as the front-runners in elections, are pushing heavily for polls to be held by December. They would be the first elections since a student-led revolt forced then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina to flee in August 2024.Microfinance pioneer Yunus, who has led the country after returning from exile at the behest of protesters, says he has a duty to implement democratic reforms before elections.Yunus has said polls could be held as early as December, but that holding them later — with a deadline of June — would give more time for those changes.- ‘Reconsider our support’ -The South Asian nation of around 170 million people has been in political turmoil since Hasina fled, but this week has seen an escalation with rival parties protesting on the streets of the capital Dhaka with a string of competing demands.”Our senior members will be there for the talks,” said BNP media official Shairul Kabir Khan.Jamaat-e-Islami’s media spokesperson Ataur Rahman Sarkar also confirmed that they were invited.On Thursday, a political ally and sources in his office said Yunus had threatened to resign if Bangladesh’s parties and factions did not back him.That came a day after BNP supporters held large-scale protests against the interim government for the first time demanding an election date.”If he is unable to announce a specific election date by December, we will reconsider our support for his administration,” senior BNP leader Salahuddin Ahmed said in an interview on a private TV channel broadcast on Friday.According to local media and military sources, army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman this week also said that elections should be held by December — aligning with BNP demands.Bangladesh has a long history of military coups, and the army retains a powerful role in the country.- ‘Trying to assume power’ -Jamaat-e-Islami loyalists have also protested against the government, demanding the abolition of a women’s commission seeking equality.Nahid Islam, leader of the National Citizen Party — made up of many of the students who spearheaded the uprising against Hasina — said his party meanwhile wanted later elections to give time for change.The students wanted “fundamental reforms” to Bangladesh’s system of governance, Islam, an ally of Yunus, told reporters on Friday, according to the Prothom Alo newspaper.But he said rival parties considered the overthrow of Hasina to be “regime change and are trying to assume power” under the existing constitution.”There are efforts to create an unstable situation in the country,” Islam added. “We must remain united and not fall into the trap.”Hasina, 77, remains in self-imposed exile in India.She has defied an arrest warrant to face trial for crimes against humanity related to last year’s police crackdown on protesters during which at least 1,400 were killed.

Bangladesh’s Muhammad Yunus “needs to remain” in office as interim leader to ensure a peaceful transition of power, a cabinet member and special adviser to Yunus said Friday.Yunus, the 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner who took over after a mass uprising last year, had threatened to quit the job if parties did not give him their backing, a political ally and sources in his office said.The South Asian nation has been in political turmoil since the student-led revolt that toppled then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024, with parties protesting on the streets over a string of demands.”For the sake of Bangladesh and a peaceful democratic transition, Professor Yunus needs to remain in office,” Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb, a special assistant to Yunus, and head of the Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology, said in a post on Facebook.”The Chief Adviser is not going to step down,” he added. “He does not hanker after power.”He later deleted his post.Bangladesh’s political crisis has escalated this week, with rival parties protesting on the streets of the capital Dhaka with a string of competing demands.Yunus’s reported threat to stand down came after thousands of supporters of the powerful Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) rallied in Dhaka on Wednesday, holding large-scale protests against the interim government for the first time.Yunus has promised polls will be held by June 2026 at the latest in the Muslim-majority nation of around 170 million people.But supporters of the BNP — seen as front-runners in the highly anticipated elections that will be the first since Hasina was overthrown — demanded he fix a date.- ‘Chaotic phase’ -Yunus’s relationship with the military has also reportedly deteriorated.According to local media and military sources, army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman said on Wednesday that elections should be held by December, warning that Bangladesh was in a “chaotic phase” and that the “situation is worsening by the day”.Taiyeb issued a warning to the army on Friday. “The army can’t meddle in politics,” he wrote.”The army doesn’t do that in any civilised country,” he added.”By saying that the election has to be held by December, the military chief failed to maintain his jurisdictional correctness.”- ‘Excessive restriction’ -The army played a decisive role in the ending of Hasina’s rule by not stepping in to quash the uprising, after at least 1,400 protesters were killed in a police crackdown.It was Waker-Uz-Zaman who announced that Hasina had been overthrown, with the military taking brief control, before handing over to Yunus.The army issued a statement late on Thursday it said was aimed to combat those seeking to create divisions between the military and the public.”Some vested interest groups are circulating misleading information and trying to create a divide between the army and the general public,” the army said in a statement late Thursday.It released a list of the hundreds of people it had briefly sheltered inside army bases in the chaotic days following Hasina’s ouster “to save them from extrajudicial killings”.Among those the army said it sheltered to “save lives” were 24 political figures, as well as judges, civil service staff, academics and more 525 police personnel.The army did not give details on those it accused of seeking to undermine its support.The National Citizen Party (NCP) — made up of many of the students who spearheaded the uprising against Hasina, and a group close to Yunus  — has previously accused of the army of supporting Hasina’s Awami League party.Hasina, 77, remains in self-imposed exile in India, where she has defied an arrest warrant to face trial for crimes against humanity related to the police crackdown.The government banned the Awami League this month after protests outside Yunus’s house, a move that sparked criticism from Human Rights Watch, calling it an “excessive restriction on fundamental freedoms that mirrors the previous government’s abusive clampdown”.

Sri Lanka’s former skipper Angelo Mathews said on Friday he will retire from Test cricket after playing in the first match against Bangladesh next month but will continue white-ball cricket.The 37-year-old veteran will leave the longest format of the game after a Test career of 16 years, which began with a match against Pakistan in July 2009 at the Galle stadium. His final Test appearance, his 119th, will also be at the same venue from June 17.However, he will not play in the second Test against Bangladesh.”I stand grateful to the game and thankful to the thousands of Sri Lanka cricket fans who have been there for me throughout my career during my highest of highs and lowest of lows,” he said in a statement.”Now seems like the best time to make way for a younger player to take the mantle to shine for our nation.”There was no immediate comment from Sri Lanka Cricket.A former captain in all three formats of the game, Mathews has been a mainstay in Sri Lanka’s middle order.He has scored 8,167 runs in the 118 Tests he has played so far. He has also taken 33 wickets, giving away 1,798 runs.

The banning of fugitive ex-leader Sheikh Hasina’s party offers a sliver of justice for Bangladeshis demanding she face trial for crimes against humanity but also raises concerns about the inclusivity of elections.”The government has taken the right decision,” said Jahangir Alam, whose 19-year-old son was killed during the mass uprising that forced Hasina into exile in August 2024, ending the 15 years of iron-fisted control by her once all-powerful Awami League party.”Because of her, the Awami League is now ruined,” Alam said, demanding Hasina return from India to comply with the arrest warrant on charges related to the crackdown that killed at least 1,400 protesters.”Who gave Sheikh Hasina the authority to kill my son?” said Alam, the father of Ibrahim Hossain Zahid, accusing 77-year-old Hasina of being a “mass murderer”.Bangladesh’s oldest political party played a key role in the country’s liberation war from Pakistan in 1971 and was once led by Hasina’s late father, the nation’s founding figure, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.”People used to hang Mujib’s photo over their heads,” he said. “Because of Sheikh Hasina’s wrongdoing, that photo is now under our feet.”- ‘Democratic space may shrink’ -Political fortunes rise and fall quickly in Bangladesh.Hasina’s government was blamed for extensive human rights abuses and protesters demanded that the interim government led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus take action.The South Asian nation of some 170 million people last held elections in January 2024, when Hasina won a fourth term in the absence of genuine opposition parties.Yunus promises that inclusive elections will be held by June 2026 at the latest.Among those demanding the Awami League ban was the National Citizen’s Party made up of many of the students who spearheaded last year’s uprising.Others were supporters of the Hefazat-e-Islam group and Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest Islamist political party.Jamaat-e-Islami was banned during Hasina’s time in power and several of its leaders were tried and hanged. Unsurprisingly, its members were vocal supporters of the ban.The government banned the Awami League on May 12 after protests outside Yunus’s home, pending the trial of Hasina.”The oppressed have begun becoming oppressors,” said Latif Siddiqui, a veteran Awami League member and former minister, adding that the party was wider than Hasina alone.”She is not the whole Awami League,” he said. “Many loved the party.”Human Rights Watch issued stinging criticism on Thursday, warning that “imposing a ban on any speech or activity deemed supportive of a political party is an excessive restriction on fundamental freedoms that mirrors the previous government’s abusive clampdown”.However, political analyst Farhad Mazhar, an ideological guru for many student protesters, said the ban was required.”The democratic space may shrink, but the Awami League has shown no remorse,” Mazhar said.- ‘Stripping the voting rights’ -However, Jatiya Party chairman GM Quader said that banning any party stifled democracy.”We believe in multi-party democracy,” he said.His party had been close with the Awami League under Hasina, Quader said, but it had also opposed the ban on Jamaat-e-Islami.”We don’t support banning any political party that… follows the rules,” Quader said. Jamaat-e-Islami supported Islamabad during Bangladesh’s independence war from Pakistan in 1971. Rivals now question if it, too, should be restricted for its historical role.”If the Awami League is banned for mass murder, then the question arises — what will happen to those parties that were involved in genocide, directly or indirectly?” Quader said.”In the history of Bangladesh, the most people were killed during the Liberation War.”The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), widely tipped to win the elections when they happen, has taken a more pragmatic approach.Key leader Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury has said there is no bar on former Awami League loyalists joining his party, so long as they had not previously worked to “suppress”  the BNP.Regardless, the upcoming vote will now take place without what was one of Bangladesh’s most popular parties.Mamun Al Mostofa, professor of political science at Dhaka University, pointed out the party had been “banned before and went through severe crises… but it made a comeback”.Shahdeen Malik, a Supreme Court lawyer and constitutional expert, said a strong opposition helped support democracy.”AL had a vote bank of around 30 percent of the total electorate,” Malik said, noting that Hasina escalated her grip on power after crushing opponents in the 2008 election.”Due to their atrocities, they may have lost some of that support — but it is still unlikely to drop below 20 percent,” he said.”Stripping the voting rights of this 20 percent won’t benefit anyone.”

Mitchell Marsh struck his first Indian Premier League century as Lucknow Super Giants pulled off an upset 33-run win against table-toppers Gujarat Titans on Thursday.Marsh smashed 117 off 64 balls studded with 10 fours and eight sixes to help Lucknow post a formidable 235-2 off 20 overs.Gujarat, who have already qualified for the playoffs, could only make 202-9 in reply at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.”We gave 15-20 runs extra. If we’d stopped them at 210-220 it would’ve been better, that was a huge difference,” said Gujarat skipper Shubman Gill.”Getting momentum back will be key in the next game.”Lucknow were playing for pride after being eliminated from the playoffs.   Gujarat lost in-form opener and the tournament’s highest run-getter Sai Sudharsan for 21, caught by Aiden Markram off Will O’Rourke, who ended with figures of 3-27.Sudharsan’s opening partner Gill looked in good touch before he was caught in the deep by Abdul Samad off Avesh Khan for 35.Jos Buttler (33) tried to steady the innings but was dismissed by Akash Singh in the 10th over.Shahrukh Khan (57) and Sherfane Rutherford (38) revived hopes of a comeback but O’Rourke took two wickets in the 17th over to seal Gujarat’s fate.”We had a lot of fun out there, T20 is fickle,” said O’Rourke.Earlier, Marsh combined with Markram to give Lucknow a steady start, putting on 91 runs for the opening wicket after Gujarat won the toss and elected to bowl.Markram (36) hit fellow South African Kagiso Rabada for two sixes in a row before being caught by Shahrukh near the boundary off Sai Kishore.Marsh continued his onslaught at the other end, hitting Afghanistan spinner Rashid Khan for 25 runs in his first over of the game.The right-hander, who raced to his century off just 56 balls, was finally caught by a diving Rutherford off paceman Arshad Khan for 117.Nicholas Pooran also impressed, making an unbeaten 56 runs off 27 balls with four fours and five sixes.Lucknow’s struggling skipper Rishabh Pant made 16 not out.The IPL resumed last Saturday after being paused due to a deadly conflict between India and Pakistan, forcing overseas players to revisit their season plans.

Bangladesh’s interim leader, who took over after a mass uprising last year, has threatened to resign if parties do not give him their backing, a political ally and sources in his office said Thursday.The South Asian nation of some 170 million people has been in political turmoil since a student-led revolt forced then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina to flee in August 2024.But this week has seen an escalation in political crisis with rival parties protesting on the streets of the capital Dhaka with a string of competing demands.Muhammad Yunus, the 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner who leads the caretaker government as its chief advisor until elections, told his cabinet he wanted to quit if political parties did not give him their full support, a source inside his office said. “He wanted to tender his resignation, but his cabinet members persuaded him not to”, the source told AFP.- ‘Reconsidering’ -Nahid Islam, leader of the National Citizen Party — made up of many of the students who spearheaded the uprising against Hasina — met with Yunus on Thursday evening, another top NCP leader Ariful Islam Adeeb said.”They spoke about the current political situation”, Adeeb told AFP.”The chief adviser said he is reconsidering whether he can continue his duties under the current circumstances”.But Nahid Islam — who had initially been part of Yunus’s cabinet before resigning to form a political party — “urged him to remain in office”, Adeeb said.Shafiqur Rahman, the chief of Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest Islamist party, has urged Yunus to call an all-party meeting to address the crisis, a party official said.- ‘Chaotic phase’ -Yunus’s reported threat to stand down comes a day after thousands of supporters of the powerful Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) rallied in Dhaka, holding large-scale protests against the interim government for the first time.Yunus has promised polls will be held by June 2026 at the latest, but supporters of the BNP — seen as the frontrunners in highly anticipated elections that will be the first since Hasina was overthrown — demanded he fix a date.”If the government fails to meet public expectations, it will be difficult for the BNP to continue extending its support,” senior BNP leader Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain told reporters Thursday. “The highest priority should be placed on announcing a clear roadmap for the election”.The BNP also demanded Yunus sack two members of this cabinet, accusing them of being close to the NCP, as well as well as the national security advisor.”Their presence in the council of advisers raises questions about the nonpartisan and impartial nature of the government,” Hossain said.”It seems the government is pushing forward the agenda of a particular group.” Yunus’s relationship with the military has also reportedly deteriorated. On Wednesday, it was reported that powerful army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman said elections should be held by December.”Bangladesh is passing through a chaotic phase,” Waker-Uz-Zaman was quoted by newspapers as saying.”The situation is worsening by the day. The structure of the civil administration and law enforcement agencies has collapsed and failed to reconstitute.”

Two weeks after Pakistan and India’s most intense military clashes in decades, clearance teams along the border comb through fields for unexploded shells so residents can safely build back from the rubble of their homes.Around 70 people, mostly Pakistanis, were killed in the four-day conflict that spread beyond divided Kashmir, over which the neighbours have fought three major wars.The military confrontation — involving intense tit-for-tat drone, missile, aerial combat and artillery exchanges — came to an abrupt end after US President Donald Trump announced a surprise ceasefire, which is still holding.On the Pakistan side of Kashmir, 500 buildings were damaged or destroyed — including nearly 50 in the picturesque Neelum Valley, where two people were killed.”There is a possibility that there are unexploded shells still embedded in the ground,” said local official Muhammad Kamran, who has been helping clear educational institutions near the border.Unexploded ordnance dating from conflicts past killed several children in 2021 and 2022 in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.- ‘We are brave’ -Headmaster Muhammad Zubair follows a mine detector into a classroom of his high school in the valley where a writing on a whiteboard standing in the debris reads “we are brave” in English.”Although the fighting has stopped, people still hold so much fear and anxiety,” he told AFP.”Despite calling them back to school, children are not showing up.”Abdul Rasheed, a power department official, said he worked “day and night” to repair power lines damaged by Indian firing.Over the years, investment in roads has helped to create a modest tourism sector in the Neelum Valley, attracting Pakistanis who come to marvel at the Himalayan mountains.Hotels reopened on Monday, but they remain deserted in the middle of peak season.Alif Jan, 76, who has lived through multiple clashes between the two sides, is yet to call her grandchildren back to her border village after sending them away during the latest hostilities.”It was a very difficult time. It was like doomsday had arrived,” she said.The children were sent to Pakistan-held Kashmir’s main city of Muzaffarabad, usually safe but this time targeted with an Indian air strike.- Waiting for compensation -Jan wants to be certain the fighting doesn’t resume and that she has enough to feed them before they eventually return.In a schoolyard, she collects a 20-kilogram (45-pound) bag of flour, a can of oil, and some medicine from a local NGO.Thousands of other families are still waiting to be relocated or compensated for damage.”We have identified 5,000 families,” said Fawad Aslam, the programme manager of local aid group.”Our first priority is families who suffered direct damage, while the second priority is those who were forced to migrate — people who had to leave their homes and are now living in camps or temporary shelters.”For 25-year-old Numan Butt whose brother was killed by shrapnel, the aid is little consolation.”This conflict keeps coming upon us; this oppression is ongoing,” he told AFP.”It is a good thing that they have agreed to peace, but the brother I have lost will never come back.”

Bangladesh’s powerful army chief has said the first elections since the country’s former leader was ousted in a mass uprising should be held by December, local media reported and military sources confirmed on Thursday.General Waker-Uz-Zaman was reported to have told officers on Wednesday that elections should be held by December this year — if not earlier, according to Bangladeshi newspapers.The South Asian nation of around 170 million people has been in political turmoil since the student-led revolt that ousted then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina in August, with parties protesting on the streets making rafts of demands.”Bangladesh is passing through a chaotic phase,” Waker-Uz-Zaman said, according to the newspapers.”The situation is worsening by the day. The structure of the civil administration and law enforcement agencies has collapsed and failed to reconstitute.”No date has been set for elections but interim leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, has promised polls will be held by June 2026 at the latest.But the key Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), seen as the front-runners in the elections, have repeatedly demanded an election date.The BNP on Wednesday held protests in the capital Dhaka, significant in that they for the first time demonstrated against the caretaker government.In response to a question from an officer, the army chief reportedly said: “Elections should be held by December, if not earlier.”He also is reported to have told officers to “carry out your duties with honesty and impartiality during the election”.It was Waker-Uz-Zaman who announced in August last year that Hasina had been overthrown, with the military taking brief control.Days later, Waker-Uz-Zaman handed over power to Yunus, 84, who has said he will lead the caretaker government until the next elections.Lieutenant Colonel Sami-Ud-Dowla Chowdhury, the military spokesperson, confirmed that Waker-Uz-Zaman had addressed officers on Wednesday but said the “meeting was confidential”.But three sources with direct knowledge of the meeting told AFP that the army chief emphasised the urgency of holding elections and said they should be held by December.Known for his calm demeanour, Waker-Uz-Zaman appeared frustrated and dissatisfied during the session, they said.