MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) — Half-centuries from Saud Shakeel and Mohammad Rizwan revived Pakistan to 143-4 after top-order batters stumbled in the first cricket test against West Indies on Friday.
Shakeel made a gritty unbeaten 56 and Rizwan was not out on 51 on Day 1 as they rebuilt Pakistan on a tricky dry wicket tailor-made for spinners.
The start of the test match between the two bottom-placed teams in the World Test Championship was delayed by four hours because of heavy fog and mist in Multan. Fast bowler Jayden Seales’ (3-21) triple strike then left Pakistan reeling at 46-4 inside the first hour.
But Shakeel and Rizwan steadied the innings with their unbroken 97-run stand and upped the scoring rate in an hour-long last session which produced 57 runs.
Both batters used their feet well against the three West Indies spinners and swept the bad balls for boundaries during their aggressive batting after tea.
Pakistan and West Indies packed their playing XIs with three specialist spinners each, but it was Seales who made an early impact with the new ball.
Left-arm spinner Gudakesh Motie (1-45) also tied down the batters during his unchanged 14-over spell and there was appreciable turn for slow bowlers from ball one after Pakistan had won the toss and elected to bat.
Seales found the outside edge of debutant Mohammad Hurraira (6) in his third over and captain Shan Masood (11) got a faint edge down the leg-side against Motie which gave Tevin Imlach his second catch in his debut test match.
Seales consistently hit the hard lengths in his nine-over incisive opening spell and troubled Pakistan batters with his seam and swing. Kamran Ghulam (5) was ruled out leg before wicket when he offered no shot to an impeccable in-swinger just a ball after driving Seales to cover boundary for four.
Seales then made further inroads when he had the prized wicket of Babar Azam (8), who also edged behind the wicket and departed after facing 20 nervy balls.
Pakistan is at No. 8 and West Indies is at No. 9 on the WTC points table after performing under-par over the last one year in tests. Australia and South Africa have already qualified for June 11-15 WTC final at Lord’s.
Pakistan has lost eight of its last 10 test matches while West Indies has yet to win a test series in this WTC cycle, losing to India, England and South Africa and drawing against Australia and Bangladesh.
One of the two Pakistan wins came at the Multan Cricket Stadium and on the same pitch when it beat England on an engineered dry wicket to favor the spin duo of Sajid Khan and Noman Ali.
West Indies dropped vice-captain Joshua Da Silva after the wicketkeeper-batter couldn't impress in the three-day warm-up game against Pakistan Shaheens, and the tourists are also without ill fast bowler Kemar Roach.
AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket
West Indies Jayden Seales, left, appeals successfully LBW dismissal of Pakistan's Kamran Ghulam, right, during the day one of the first test cricket match between Pakistan and West Indies, in Multan, Pakistan, Friday, Jan. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Asim Tanveer)
Pakistan's Mohammad Rizwan, left, plays a shot during the day one of the first test cricket match between Pakistan and West Indies, in Multan, Pakistan, Friday, Jan. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Asim Tanveer)
Pakistan's Saud Shakeel bats during the day one of the first test cricket match between Pakistan and West Indies, in Multan, Pakistan, Friday, Jan. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Asim Tanveer)
West Indies captain Kraigg Brathwaite, right, and his Pakistani counterpart Shan Masood pose for photo with test-series trophy, in Multan, Pakistan, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Asim Tanveer)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A series of separate meetings between American, Russian and Ukrainian interlocutors entered their third day on Tuesday as U.S. negotiators shuttled back to discussions with their Ukrainian counterparts in the Saudi capital, a continuation of talks with Kyiv officials that began Sunday over a potential ceasefire in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, a Kremlin official said Tuesday that the talks between U.S. and Russian officials in Riyadh the previous day would likely lead to further contacts between Washington and Moscow, but that no concrete plans have yet been made.
The three days of meetings — which did not include direct Russian-Ukrainian negotiations — are part of an attempt to hammer out details on a partial pause in the 3-year-old war in Ukraine. It has been a struggle to reach even a limited, 30-day ceasefire — which Moscow and Kyiv agreed to in principle last week -- with both sides continuing to attack each other with drones and missiles.
Russia and Ukraine have also taken differing interpretations of what a possible partial ceasefire would look like, and disagreed over what kinds of targets would be included in a pause — even after U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with the leaders of both countries to advance a deal.
Yet despite the numerous sticking points — the White House has said a partial ceasefire would include ending attacks on “energy and infrastructure,” while the Kremlin declared that the agreement referred more narrowly to “energy infrastructure” — attempts to secure safe commercial shipping in the Black Sea appeared to garner support in principle from both parties, though no specific agreements have been announced.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday told the country’s state-run Channel One TV station that the Russian and U.S. delegations in Riyadh had discussed “primarily issues of safe shipping in the Black Sea” — a major shipping corridor on which both Russia and Ukraine have ports and coastline.
Lavrov also said that Moscow is up for resuming — “in some form, acceptable to everyone” — a 2022 deal that allowed Ukraine to ship grain through the Black Sea to countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where hunger was a growing threat and high food prices had pushed more people into poverty.
The landmark Black Sea Grain initiative was brokered by the U.N. and Turkey in the summer of 2022; Moscow halted it in July 2023 until its demands to get Russian food and fertilizer to the world were met.
Serhii Leshchenko, advisor to the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office, told the Associated Press on Tuesday that U.S-Ukrainian talks in Riyadh on Sunday had included “the security of shipping and infrastructure, including safety for the (Ukrainian) ports of Odesa, Mykolaiv, and Kherson.”
Leshchenko added that the Ukrainian delegation would brief Zelenskyy following renewed talks on Tuesday with the U.S. delegation, adding: “Ukraine is ready to support initiatives that will make diplomacy a means of pressure to compel Russia to end the war.”
On Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the the outcome of the U.S-Russia talks in Riyadh “has been reported in the capitals” and was currently being “analyzed” by Moscow and Washington, but that the Kremlin has no plans to release further details of what was discussed to the public.
“We’re talking about technical negotiations, negotiations with immersion in details," Peskov said, adding that while there are currently no plans for Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to speak, such a conversation could be quickly organized if the need arises.
“There is an understanding that the contacts will continue, but there is nothing concrete at the moment,” Peskov said. He added that that there are no plans to hold a three-way meeting between Russia, the U.S. and Ukraine.
Senior Russian lawmaker Grigory Karasin, who took part in the Russia-U.S. talks in Riyadh on Monday, told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti that the conversation was “very interesting, difficult, but quite constructive.”
“We were at it all day from morning until late at night,” Karasin was quoted by the agency as saying on Tuesday.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday that Ukraine had "continued deliberate drone strikes against Russia’s civilian energy facilities.”
One Ukrainian drone attack on Monday knocked down a high-voltage power line linking the Rostov nuclear power plant with the city of Tikhoretsk in the southern Krasnodar region, the ministry said, adding that another drone strike had occurred on the Svatovo gas distribution station in the Russia-occupied Ukrainian region of Luhansk.
"Zelenskyy confirms his inability to observe agreements and makes it impossible for outside guarantors of any potential agreements to control him,” the ministry said.
In Ukraine, the number of people injured Monday in a Russian missile strike on the center of the city of Sumy rose to 101 people including 23 children, according to the Sumy regional administration.
The strike on Sumy, across the border from Russia’s Kursk region which was partially occupied by Ukraine since August, hit residential buildings and a school, which had to be evacuated due to the attack.
Meanwhile, Russian forces launched one ballistic missile and 139 long-range strike and decoy drones into Ukraine overnight, according to the Ukrainian air force. Those attacks affected seven regions of Ukraine and injured multiple people.
Associated Press writer Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this report.
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, a paramedic evacuates an elderly resident whose house was hit by Russian attack in Sumy, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters put out the fire following a Russian attack in Sumy, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, a psychologist works with residents of houses which were hit by a Russian attack in Sumy, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters put out the fire following a Russian attack in Sumy, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
