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Nobel Peace Prize laureate and education activist Malala Yousafzai returned to her Pakistan home village on Wednesday, 13 years after surviving an assassination attempt by militants.Yousafzai was a 15-year-old schoolgirl when Pakistan Taliban militants boarded a bus and shot her in the head in the remote Swat Valley near the Afghanistan border.She has made rare visits to the valley since, but it was the first time she returned to her childhood home in Shangla since being evacuated to the United Kingdom after the attack. “As a child, I spent every holiday in Shangla, Pakistan, playing by the river and sharing meals with my extended family,” she said on X. “It was such a joy for me to return there today — after 13 long years — to be surrounded by the mountains, dip my hands in the cold river and laugh with my beloved cousins. This place is very dear to my heart and I hope to return again and again.”Yousafzai was accompanied by her father, husband and brother for the high-security visit by helicopter which lasted just three hours.Authorities have been cautious in allowing her to return to Shangla district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where militancy has soared following the return of the Afghan Taliban in Kabul in 2021. The area was sealed off for several hours to provide security for her visit on Wednesday, which included a stop at local education projects backed by her Malala Fund.”Her visit was kept highly secret to avoid any untoward incidents,” a senior administration official told AFP on  condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media.”Even the locals were unaware of her plans to visit.”The Pakistan Taliban is a separate but closely linked group to the Afghan Taliban and controlled swaths of the border regions at the time Yousafzai was shot. Militants had ordered girls to stay home, but she continued to secretly go to school and wrote a blog about her experience. She went on to become an education activist and the world’s youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner at age 17. In January, she addressed Muslim world leaders at an education conference in Islamabad where she called for action against the Afghan Taliban, who have banned teenage girls from going to school.Her hometown visit comes in a week marred by violence in Pakistan, with 18 civilians and soldiers killed in an overnight suicide attack on a military compound in the same province. “I pray for peace in every corner of our beautiful country. The recent attacks, including in Bannu yesterday, are heartbreaking,” Yousafzai said of the attack.

An Islamic State operative who allegedly helped carry out the 2021 suicide bombing outside Kabul airport during the chaotic US military withdrawal was to appear in a Virginia court Wednesday, the Justice Department said.The bomber detonated a device among packed crowds as they tried to flee Afghanistan, killing 170 Afghans and 13 US troops securing the perimeter, days after the Taliban seized control of the capital.The Department of Justice (DOJ) said a member of the Islamic State Khorasan (ISK) branch in Afghanistan and Pakistan who had admitted to “helping prepare” for the attack would appear in court near the US capital Wednesday.The man, named Mohammad Sharifullah, had told FBI agents that his help included “scouting a route near the airport for an attacker,” the DOJ said.ISK militants gave Sharifullah, also known as Jafar, a cellphone and a SIM card and told him to check the route, according to the affidavit in the case.When he gave it the all clear they told him to leave the area, it said.”Later that same day, Sharifullah learned of the attack at HKIA described above and recognized the alleged bomber as an ISIS-K operative he had known while incarcerated,” the affidavit said, using an alternative acronym for the group.Sharifullah has been charged with “providing and conspiring to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization resulting in death.”In his first address to Congress since returning to the White House, Trump announced on Tuesday that Pakistan had assisted in the arrest of “the top terrorist responsible for that atrocity.”He thanked Islamabad “for helping arrest this monster.””This evil ISIS-K terrorist orchestrated the brutal murder of 13 heroic Marines,” US Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.Sharifullah also admitted to involvement in several other attacks, the DOJ said, including the March 2024 Moscow Crocus City Hall attack in which he said “he had shared instructions on how to use AK-style rifles and other weapons to would-be attackers” by video.The United States withdrew its last troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, ending a chaotic evacuation of tens of thousands of Afghans who had rushed to Kabul’s airport in the hope of boarding a flight out of the country.Images of crowds storming the airport, climbing atop aircraft — and some clinging to a departing US military cargo plane as it rolled down the runway — aired on news bulletins around the world.In April 2023, the White House announced that an Islamic State official involved in plotting the attack at the airport’s Abbey Gate had been killed in an operation by Afghanistan’s new Taliban government.- ‘Leverage US concerns’ -Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif thanked Trump for acknowledging his country’s role in counter-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan.He promised to “continue to partner closely with the United States in securing regional peace and stability,” in a post on X.Pakistan’s strategic importance has waned since the US and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, which has seen violence rebound in the border regions.Tensions between the neighboring countries have soared, with Islamabad accusing Kabul of failing to root out militants sheltering on Afghan soil who launch attacks on Pakistan.The Taliban government denies the charges and in a statement said Sharifullah’s arrest “is proof” that ISK hideouts are on Pakistani soil.ISK, which has claimed several recent attacks in Afghanistan, has staged a growing number of bloody international assaults, including killing more than 90 in an Iranian bombing last year.Michael Kugelman, South Asia Institute director at The Wilson Center, said on X that Pakistan was trying to “leverage US concerns about terror in Afghanistan and pitch a renewed security partnership.”

Thirteen civilians and five soldiers were killed when suicide bombers drove two explosive-laden cars into an army compound in northwestern Pakistan, the military said on Wednesday. Four children were among those killed in Tuesday’s attack, which involved four suicide bombers, with fighting raging into the early hours of Wednesday. The attack took place in Bannu, a district in the turbulent Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province close to Afghanistan and adjacent to the formerly self-governed tribal areas, once a hotbed for militancy.”The terrorists entered Bannu Cantt from two different directions and, after an intense operation lasting several hours until this morning, all attackers were eliminated,” provincial minister Pakhtoon Yar Khan told AFP, adding that four children and three women were killed.Plumes of grey smoke rose into the air after the two explosions, with gunfire heard throughout the night.”In this intense exchange of fire, five brave soldiers, after putting up a heroic resistance, embraced martyrdom in the line of duty,” the military said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that 13 civilians were also killed.The statement said 16 “terrorists”, including four suicide bombers, were killed, while a nearby mosque and residential area were severely damaged.Thousands of people, including security officials, attended funerals for 12 of the civilians held at a sports complex in Bannu on Wednesday afternoon.Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif denounced the attackers as “cowardly terrorists who target innocent civilians during the holy month of Ramadan” and said they “deserve no mercy”.- ‘Apocalyptic devastation’ -The attack was claimed by a faction of the Hafiz Gul Bahadur armed group, which actively supported the Afghan Taliban in its war against the US-led NATO coalition between 2001 and 2021.”The force of the explosion threw me several feet away… The explosion was so intense that it caused significant damage to the neighbourhood,” Nadir Ali Shah, 40, told AFP from hospital as he received treatment for head and leg wounds.”It was a scene of apocalyptic devastation.”A police official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorised to speak to the media, told AFP on Tuesday that “the blasts created two four-foot craters”.The attack came days after a suicide bomber killed six people at an Islamic religious school in Pakistan attended by key Taliban leaders in the same province.Meanwhile four people were killed and five others wounded on Wednesday in Khuzdar city in southwestern Balochistan province, which is facing a separatist insurgency, when an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded, targeting a local pro-government tribal elder, police told AFP.Violence has increased in Pakistan since the Taliban authorities returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021.Islamabad accuses Kabul’s rulers of failing to root out militants sheltering on Afghan soil as they prepare to stage assaults on Pakistan, a charge the Taliban government denies.The military said it has “unequivocally confirmed the physical involvement of Afghan nationals” in the attack, which they said was “orchestrated and directed” by militant leaders operating from Afghanistan.”Pakistan expects the Interim Afghan Government to uphold its responsibilities and deny its soil for terrorist activities against Pakistan,” the statement said.Hafiz Gul Bahadur carried out another attack on the same compound last July, detonating a car bomb against the boundary wall, killing eight Pakistani soldiers.Last year was the deadliest in a decade for Pakistan, home to 250 million people, with a surge in attacks that killed more than 1,600 people, according to Islamabad-based analysis group the Center for Research and Security Studies.The violence is largely limited to Pakistan’s border regions with Afghanistan.

An Islamic State operative who allegedly planned the 2021 suicide bombing outside Kabul airport during the chaotic US military withdrawal has been arrested, President Donald Trump has said.The bomber detonated a device among packed crowds as they tried to flee Afghanistan, killing 170 Afghans and 13 US troops securing the perimeter, days after the Taliban seized control of the capital.In his first address to Congress since returning to the White House, Trump announced on Tuesday that Pakistan had assisted in the arrest of “the top terrorist responsible for that atrocity.”The Justice Department named the man as Mohammad Sharifullah, also known as Jafar, and said he is expected to appear in a Virginia court on Wednesday.Sharifullah, who is a leader of the Islamic State Khorasan branch in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has been charged with “providing and conspiring to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization resulting in death.”The Justice Department said Wednesday the operative admitted to FBI Special Agents “to helping prepare” for the attack, “including scouting a route near the airport for an attacker.””This evil ISIS-K terrorist orchestrated the brutal murder of 13 heroic Marines,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.Sharifullah also admitted to involvement in several other attacks, the Justice Department said, including the March 2024 Moscow Crocus City Hall attack in which he said “he had shared instructions on how to use AK-style rifles and other weapons to would-be attackers.”In Tuesday’s speech, Trump took a swipe at his predecessor Joe Biden’s oversight of the “disastrous and incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan” and thanked Pakistan “for helping arrest this monster.”The United States withdrew its last troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, ending a chaotic evacuation of tens of thousands of Afghans who had rushed to Kabul’s airport in the hope of boarding a flight out of the country.Images of crowds storming the airport, climbing atop aircraft — and some clinging to a departing US military cargo plane as it rolled down the runway — aired on news bulletins around the world.In April 2023, the White House announced that an Islamic State official involved in plotting the attack at the airport’s Abbey Gate had been killed in an operation by Afghanistan’s new Taliban government.- ‘Leverage US concerns’ -Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif thanked Trump for “acknowledging and appreciating Pakistan’s role and support” in counter-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan.”We will continue to partner closely with the United States in securing regional peace and stability,” he wrote on social media platform X.Pakistan’s strategic importance has waned since the US and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, which has seen violence rebound in the border regions.Tensions between the neighboring countries have soared, with Islamabad accusing Kabul of failing to root out militants sheltering on Afghan soil who launch attacks on Pakistan.The Taliban government denies the charges and in a statement said the arrest of the ISK operative Sharifullah “is proof” that the group’s hideouts are on Pakistani soil.ISK, which has claimed several recent attacks in Afghanistan, has staged a growing number of bloody international assaults, including killing more than 90 in an Iranian bombing last year.Michael Kugelman, South Asia Institute director at The Wilson Center, said on X that Pakistan was trying to “leverage US concerns about terror in Afghanistan and pitch a renewed security partnership.””Pakistan’s help catching the Abbey Gate attack plotter should be seen in this context,” he added.

Sri Lanka will launch a nationwide census of nuisance wildlife, including monkeys and peacocks, as part of an effort to tackle the increasing threat to agriculture, the government said Wednesday.Thousands of officials and volunteers have been mobilised to count wild boar, lorises, peacocks, and monkeys near farms and homes on March 15, the agriculture ministry said in a statement.”The high price of fruit and vegetables is due to these pests,” the ministry said, adding that they hope to develop ways to deal with the animals raiding farms and home gardens.Official estimates suggest that about a third of all crops in Sri Lanka are eaten or destroyed by wild animals, including elephants, which are protected by law as they are considered sacred.The ministry said the census would be conducted in a way to avoid double counting.”The census will help provide a sustainable solution to the problem of wild animals raiding and destroying crops,” the ministry said, adding that it was seeking public support for the count.In 2023, the then agricultural minister proposed exporting some 100,000 toque macaques to Chinese zoos, but the monkey business was abandoned following protests from environmentalists.Sri Lanka removed several species from its protected list in 2023, including all three of its monkey species as well as peacocks and wild boars, allowing farmers to kill them.Elephants are also major raiders of rice farms and fruit plantations, leading to violent clashes with villagers.Official figures show that 1,200 people and more than 3,500 elephants were killed in a decade due to the worsening human-elephant conflict.The government has pledged to increase electric fences to keep elephants from raiding villages but efforts so far have failed to reduce conflicts.

Pakistan cricket fans and former players seethed Wednesday after the host country’s already disappointing Champions Trophy suffered one last blow: no final.”It’s totally unfair,” said Moeed Ali Khan, a private car driver outside Lahore’s Gaddafi Stadium to watch the second semi-final between South Africa and New Zealand.”I am disgusted, neither our team is in the final nor is the final in Pakistan.” Pakistan celebrated on February 19 when the country began staging its first major international cricket tournament in three decades.But it was all downhill after that.The hosts lost the opening match to New Zealand and their title defence was over with a comprehensive defeat to arch-rivals India.Their dead-rubber final group match, against Bangladesh, was washed out. This Sunday’s final was scheduled for Lahore, but with one big caveat: not if India reached the title decider.By defeating Australia in the first semi-final on Tuesday, India did just that.India have played all their games, including the Australia clash, in Dubai after refusing to visit neighbouring Pakistan because of political tensions.The final will also be at Dubai International Cricket Stadium.Pakistan only agreed to the so-called hybrid model of hosting on the condition that they will also not send their team to India for upcoming ICC events.The arrangement, which saw other teams shuttle in and out of the UAE while India stayed put, underlined India’s outsized influence over cricket.”We accepted this arrangement, so what is the fuss?” asked Abdul Samad, a cricket fan.”When you do not have power you have to bow down and this is the bargain Pakistan had to do.”No regrets for me. Our team and our cricket is lagging behind so we had to make a compromise.”Others in Pakistan are not so pragmatic.”No final in Pakistan after such a heavy investment on the venues is a blow,” former captain Rashid Latif told AFP.”Pakistan is at the lowest level in terms of finances and team-wise as well, which is a double loss.”Pakistan reportedly spent the equivalent of 16 million dollars to upgrade the three venues in Lahore, Karachi and Rawalpindi.The country will reportedly get six million dollars in hosting fees from the ICC.But finances could be hit with the lack of interest in the 50-over tournament after the home team’s early exit.Three of the matches in Pakistan were hit by bad weather and empty seats at games were noticeable.”India have improved enormously and that has been evident in this event,” said Latif, reflecting on what has happened on the pitch. “But I think politics has lowered the cricket a great deal.”He added: “I think had they come to Pakistan and lifted the trophy in Lahore it would have been great.”Latif says the repercussions of the split hosting will last beyond the Champions Trophy.”This problem of one team not coming to another country and in future Pakistan not going to India will hit world cricket badly,” he said.”It needs to be addressed quickly.”

China set an ambitious annual growth target of around five percent on Wednesday, vowing to make domestic demand its main economic driver as an escalating trade war with the United States hit exports.Beijing also announced a rare hike in fiscal funding, allowing its budget deficit to reach four percent this year as it battles stuttering employment for young people, stubbornly low consumer demand and a persistent property sector debt crisis.The headline growth figure announced by Premier Li Qiang at an annual Communist Party conclave was broadly in line with an AFP survey of analysts, although experts say it is ambitious considering the scale of China’s economic challenges.Some 12 million new jobs will be created in Chinese cities under the plans as Beijing pushes for two percent inflation this year.A government work report vowed to make domestic demand the “main engine and anchor” of growth, adding that Beijing should “move faster to address inadequate domestic demand, particularly insufficient consumption”.And in a rare move, Li said China would hike its fiscal deficit by one percentage point — its highest level in well over a decade — which analysts have said will give Beijing more latitude to tackle its economic slowdown.The growth target will be “tough but possible”, said Dylan Loh, an assistant professor at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.He said low consumption was a “confidence issue”, adding that “if people are, in their own calculations, worried about spending — especially on big-ticket items — it is far harder to address”.Another analyst said Beijing’s policies were not yet “big enough to really significantly drive up the consumer sentiment”.”We need to see a very broad-based recovery of employment, income as well as the property market before we can really see a change in consumption patterns and retail sales trend,” Yue Su, Principal Economist at The Economist Intelligence Unit, told AFP.Major Asian markets traded up on Wednesday, reversing their losses a day after US President Donald Trump imposed more blanket tariffs on Chinese imports following a similar move last month.US tariffs are expected to hit hundreds of billions of dollars in total trade between the world’s two largest economies.”Internationally, changes unseen in a century are unfolding across the world at a faster pace,” the government work report said.”Unilateralism and protectionism are on the rise,” it warned.”Domestically, the foundation for China’s sustained economic recovery and growth is not strong enough,” the report said.- Fight to the ‘bitter end’ -Chinese exports reached record levels last year.Sentiments were clouded by a broadening trade war under Trump as thousands of delegates congregated in Beijing’s opulent Great Hall of the People for the opening session of the National People’s Congress, the second of China’s “Two Sessions” political meetings this week.Beijing announced its own measures on Tuesday in retaliation for Washington’s latest tariff hike and vowed it would fight a trade war to the “bitter end”.The moves will see China impose levies of up to 15 percent on a range of US agricultural products including soybeans, pork and wheat starting from early next week.Beijing’s countermeasures represent a “relatively muted response” in comparison to Trump’s all-encompassing tariffs, wrote Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at ING.”The retaliation could have been a lot stronger, and with every further escalation the risks are also rising for a stronger response,” he said.Analysts say authorities could announce further plans to boost the economy this week, adding to a string of aggressive support measures announced late last year.China also disclosed on Wednesday a 7.2 percent rise in defence spending in 2025, as Beijing rapidly modernises its armed forces in the face of regional tensions and strategic competition with the United States.However, online comments bemoaned the spending rise as “too little”.Another wrote: “We must strengthen ourselves to achieve world peace.”Geopolitical tensions between Beijing and Washington are set to intensify this year, analysts say.The status of self-governed Taiwan — claimed by China as part of its sovereign territory — is chief among the sources of friction.The defence spending will finance Beijing’s frequent dispatches of military aircraft around Taiwan, intended to put pressure on authorities in the democratic island.

India’s capital New Delhi has vowed to clear one of its largest trash piles by next year as part of a plan to eradicate unsightly landfills dotting the megacity’s skyline.Around 32 million people live in greater Delhi, where a slipshod approach to waste management has left numerous landfills with garbage piled up to 60 metres (200 feet) high and visible from miles away.Regular spot fires during the capital’s long and intense summer see the trash mounds turn into toxic conflagrations spilling dangerous chemical fumes into nearby neighbourhoods.Delhi environment minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa told reporters Tuesday that work was underway to process and dispose of waste at one of the city’s biggest trash piles.By the end of the year, waste at the Bhalswa dump on the city’s northern outskirts “will be reduced to a point where it will no longer be visible” from a distance, he said.”Our ultimate aim is to ensure that no new garbage mountains are formed,” he added.Local neighbourhoods around the Bhalswa landfill are home to thousands of Delhi’s poorest residents who have migrated from grinding rural poverty in search of work.Sirsa said the Bhalswa site would be cleared by March next year with similar remediation work to follow at Delhi’s other two main garbage dumps.According to last reported estimates from 2023, Delhi generates more than 11,000 tonnes of solid waste each day, according to official estimates in 2023.More than four million tonnes of waste sit at the Bhalswa dump according to official estimates.Untreated domestic waste burns in the landfills during the hot summer months, producing excess methane which further pollutes India’s already smog-choked urban centres.

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky has told him Kyiv was ready for talks with Russia and the finalization of a US minerals deal, days after the pair’s explosive White House meeting.The dramatic collapse of Kyiv and Washington’s wartime alliance has played out in the open since the televised dispute in the Oval Office last week, followed by Ukraine’s top ally suspending crucial military aid.Zelensky has since sought to bring Trump back onside, posting on social media that their clash was “regrettable” and he wanted “to make things right”.In his address to US Congress later on Tuesday, Trump read aloud from a letter he said he recently received from Zelensky, which matched the social media statement.”The letter reads, ‘Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer. Nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians,” Trump told US lawmakers in his first address since returning to office.”We do really value how much America has done to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty and independence.'” Addressing Congress, Trump added that, “regarding the agreement on minerals and security, Ukraine is ready to sign it at any time that is convenient for you.”In the Oval Office on Friday, Vice President JD Vance accused Zelensky of being ungrateful for US assistance and Trump berated the wartime leader as not having “cards” to play.Zelensky left without signing an agreement pushed by Trump for the United States to secure control over Ukrainian mineral resources.While Trump was expected to use Tuesday’s speech to lay out a plan for the Ukraine war, he did not further detail how he envisages ending the gruelling three-year conflict.He did say he had engaged in “serious discussions with Russia”.Trump’s rapproachement with Moscow and decision on Monday to halt military assistance to Kyiv has stunned allies.Like Ukraine, the European Union has been excluded from US-Russian negotiations towards a potential truce, prompting fears any deal proposed would be on Moscow’s terms.Moscow meanwhile hailed Trump’s decision to halt assistance to Ukraine, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov calling it a “solution which could really push the Kyiv regime to a peace process”.The US pause impacts hundreds of millions of dollars of weaponry in the process of being sent to Ukraine, The New York Times reported.- ‘Stab in the back’ -Ordinary Ukrainians speaking to AFP were shocked at what they viewed as a betrayal by Trump.”It’s like a stab in the back,” a 33-year-old financial assistant in Kyiv who gave only her first name, Sofia, told AFP.Trump “wants Ukraine’s surrender, the deaths of our people, the surrender of our territories,” army volunteer Sergiy Sternenko said on Telegram.Poland’s government noted that America’s decision was made without consulting NATO allies, and said the impact was already being felt.French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou told lawmakers in Paris that “entire trains” carrying US supplies for Ukraine “are being stopped and prevented from reaching their destination”.- Troops on the ground? -Last week, Zelensky had travelled to Washington expecting to sign a US-Ukrainian deal for the joint exploitation of Ukraine’s vast mineral resources, as part of a post-war recovery in a US-brokered peace deal.The proposal was to give Washington financial benefits for helping Ukraine in a truce, even if Trump has repeatedly refused to commit any US military force as a back-up to European troops who might act as peacekeepers.After the fiery Oval Office exchange, Zelensky was asked to leave.On Tuesday, Zelensky said that Kyiv remained ready to sign the deal at “any time and in any convenient format”.Ukraine is also seeking tough security guarantees for an end to the war.After weekend crisis talks in London, Britain and France are investigating how to propose a one-month Ukraine-Russia truce — potentially backstopped by troops on the ground.Vance, in an interview with Fox News on Monday, mocked the idea of “some random country that has not fought a war in 30 or 40 years” sending soldiers to Ukraine. That prompted angry responses from French and British politicians.Vance insisted Tuesday he had not mentioned France or Britain, and said both had “fought bravely” alongside the United States over the past two decades.

India pace spearhead Mohammed Shami has broken ranks by admitting that playing all their Champions Trophy games at one venue in Dubai has been to their advantage.Shami returned figures of 3-48 to set up India’s four-wicket win over Australia in the semi-finals on Tuesday in Dubai.India coach Gautam Gambhir afterwards lashed out at critics who have said playing at the same Dubai International Cricket Stadium each time is unfair.India refused to travel to Champions Trophy hosts Pakistan over political tensions and have won all four of their games at their temporary home.They will face South Africa or New Zealand in Sunday’s final, again in Dubai.The other seven teams in the ODI competition have meanwhile had to shuttle between three Pakistani cities and the United Arab Emirates.”It definitely helped us because we know the conditions and the behaviour of the pitch,” Shami said Tuesday after his pivotal role in beating Australia.”It is a plus point that you are playing all the matches at one venue.”As part of the hybrid arrangement of the tournament, South Africa were forced to travel to Dubai, only to return to Pakistan again less than 24 hours later without playing a game.India are unbeaten in the 10 ODIs they have played in Dubai, winning nine.- ‘World class’ -Shami, 34, claimed a five-wicket haul in India’s opening win over Bangladesh and has bowled with pace and accuracy.But a question on getting reverse swing with the old ball got Shami pleading with cricket authorities to allow the use of saliva to polish the ball in the 50-over format.The International Cricket Council in 2022 made a ban on saliva — brought in during the Covid pandemic — permanent.”We are trying to reverse, but you are not getting the use of saliva into the game,” Shami told reporters.”We are constantly appealing to allow the use of saliva and it will be interesting with the reverse swing.”The use of saliva to shine one side of the old ball and keep the other rough helps fast bowlers get the leather ball to swing late and can be a lethal weapon in the final few overs of an ODI match.They can still use sweat.After a strong start to the tournament, Shami left the field briefly in the win over Pakistan.He has now put all fears of any fitness issues to rest with two matches in three days and bowling his full quota of 10 overs against Australia.”I am trying to get my rhythm back and contribute more for the team,” said Shami.He added: “I am ready to bowl long spells.”Gambhir called Shami “a world-class performer”.”He’s phenomenal and the hunger he brings on the table, the way he trains, the way he practises — that’s why you see all those results.”