After watching England lose to the Ashes with a score of 16-0, spinner Sophie Ecclestone says she was considering leaving the sport.
One of the best bowlers in the world, Ecclestone, played in every match of England’s tour, but he declined to speak for an interview following the defeat in Australia, which raised questions about the team’s attitude and ability to handle criticism.
Ecclestone, 26, took a brief break from cricket earlier this year and was sidelined from England’s summer series against West Indies due to an injury.
Ecclestone, who has returned for the ongoing series against India, told Sky Sports, “I wasn’t actually sure if I was going to come back and play cricket” during the West Indies series.
After the opening T20 in Sydney, an issue arose regarding Ecclestone, which was about to overshadow the Ashes.
Alex Hartley, a former England spinner who worked for the BBC radio team and other television networks, declined a TV interview with the spinner. Last year, Hartley questioned the fitness levels of some of England’s players.
The Ashes match was described as an “unfortunate incident that won’t happen again,” according to managing director of England women’s cricket Clare Connor after the announcement of England’s Ashes fate.
Ecclestone claimed she had “moved on” and “learned from” the situation when she first addressed the BBC in May.
Ecclestone, speaking prior to England’s third one-day international against India in Chester-le-Street, disputed the fact that she “refused” to do the interview, instead claiming she wanted to concentrate on her warm-up.
She said, “I feel like that went wrong and some things were said.”
At the time, I was just focusing on cricket, but a lot of things were said that didn’t work for me.
People suggested she is haughty, according to Ecclestone, who said the incident “took a lot out of me.”
She responded, “That’s not me as a person.” At the time, it was difficult to take.
Ecclestone made his first T20 appearance against India in June, taking nine wickets in seven games, including 3-27 on Saturday in the second Lord’s ODI victory.
Without the girls, Ecclestone said, “I’ve got a smile on my face again and I feel like I couldn’t have accomplished it.”
I couldn’t have done without my family and friends, my team-mates Lauren Bell, Alice Capsey, and myself.
A UN expert on food told Al Jazeera that the famine we’re currently seeing in Gaza represents the most harrowing stage of Israel’s hunger campaign. He demands that nations put an end to Israel’s hunger on Palestinians.
India’s captain Shubman Gill accused England of using time-wasting tactics in the dramatic third Test at Lord’s to provoke conflict with the “spirit of cricket.”
At the conclusion of the third day, England openers Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett were surrounded by the tourists, including captain Gill, by surrounded by them.
The final two days of England’s 22-run victory featured frequent clashes between the players. Mohammed Siraj, an Indian pace bowler, was punished for his celebration of Duckett’s wicket on the fourth morning, while Brydon Carse, an international all-rounder, and Ravindra Jadeja, an Indian seamer, had to be separated on the final day.
Home captain Ben Stokes said that the third evening at Lord’s “sparked everyone off a little bit” in relation to how his side were inspired over the course of the remainder of the Test before Wednesday’s fourth Test at Old Trafford, where England can win a series, was going to be played.
However, Gill claimed that Indian emotions “come out of nowhere” because Crawley and Duckett were 90 seconds late when they arrived at the crease for England’s opening second innings at Lord’s.
Let me finally clear the air once and for all, Gill said. “A lot of people have been talking about it.
There is a way to play less overs if we were in that position, but we also would like to do it.
“I don’t believe it comes in the spirit of the game to be 90 seconds late to the crease.”
After the first innings, the scores were 387 with England falling to India late on Saturday of the Lord’s Test.
The home side looked to limit the number of overs they could have faced that evening as the evening approached. When faced by Jasprit Bumrah, Crawford repeatedly resisted his position and also requested a physio after being struck in the hand.
The visitors confronted England’s players, and Sky Sports had to apologize for Gill’s swearing. At the conclusion of the match, the two teams exchanged words as they left the field.
Gill remarked, “The English batsmen on that day, they had seven minutes of play to go.” They reached the crease 90 seconds late. Not 10, not 20, they were 90 seconds late.
“Many things we thought should not have happened happened, happened,” the statement read. Although I wouldn’t say it was something I’m particularly proud of, there was a build-up to that event. It wasn’t just a blip.
We had no desire to do that in any way. There are a lot of emotions involved in your game, which you are trying to win. Sometimes emotions “come out of nowhere” when you witness things happening that shouldn’t.
Gill was the only person who spoke before Stokes, so he was not given the opportunity to directly refute the claim that his team had violated the spirit of the game.
Before the Lord’s Test, England were “too nice,” according to batter Harry Brook who revealed coach Brendon McCullum’s assessment on Monday. Stokes concured.
It’s great when we can go out and do what we did there, and we were able to back it up with our actions, Stokes said to BBC Sport. “Maybe too nice is a good way to put it.
Stokes was unwavering in his conviction that neither team engaged in any unacceptable behavior despite the frequent flashpoints over the Lord’s Test’s final two days.
“Conversations and back-and-forth you see out in the middle can occasionally be overanalyzed and criticized,” Stokes said.
No one would have cried out in disbelief over what we said to one another. In these days, we’re very quick to impose that kind of a ban. Simply put, it demonstrates desire and passion. Both teams want to win, but neither does.
It never goes over the line, and the captain is responsible for pulling it back if it does. At no point did India cross the line, and at no point did we do so”.
If England wins the fourth Test in Manchester, they will be victorious with a game to play. In nine of their nine previous appearances, India has won, while England has only lost once in this match.
Stokes said his team won’t seek conflict at Old Trafford despite how well the aggression at Lord’s served England.
We won’t go out and start it off on its own because I don’t want it to distract us from the topic of the week’s purpose, Stokes said.
“It was nice that we said we wouldn’t let any team feel intimidated by us.”
Making sure that isn’t the main goal is the confrontation, they say, not to shy away from it. It does it in a good way by controlling everything along with your emotions.
India’s captain Shubman Gill accused England of using time-wasting tactics in the dramatic third Test at Lord’s to provoke conflict with the “spirit of cricket.”
At the conclusion of the third day, England openers Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett were surrounded by the tourists, including captain Gill, by surrounded by them.
The final two days of England’s 22-run victory featured frequent clashes between the players. Mohammed Siraj, an Indian pace bowler, was punished for his celebration of Duckett’s wicket on the fourth morning, while Brydon Carse, an international all-rounder, and Ravindra Jadeja, an Indian seamer, had to be separated on the final day.
Home captain Ben Stokes said that the third evening at Lord’s “sparked everyone off a little bit” in relation to how his side were inspired over the course of the remainder of the Test before Wednesday’s fourth Test at Old Trafford, where England can win a series, was going to be played.
However, Gill claimed that Indian emotions “come out of nowhere” because Crawley and Duckett were 90 seconds late when they arrived at the crease for England’s opening second innings at Lord’s.
Let me finally clear the air once and for all, Gill said. “A lot of people have been talking about it.
There is a way to play less overs if we were in that position, but we also would like to do it.
“I don’t believe it comes in the spirit of the game to be 90 seconds late to the crease.”
After the first innings, the scores were 387 with England falling to India late on Saturday of the Lord’s Test.
The home side looked to limit the number of overs they could have faced that evening as the evening approached. When faced by Jasprit Bumrah, Crawford repeatedly resisted his position and also requested a physio after being struck in the hand.
The visitors confronted England’s players, and Sky Sports had to apologize for Gill’s swearing. At the conclusion of the match, the two teams exchanged words as they left the field.
Gill remarked, “The English batsmen on that day, they had seven minutes of play to go.” They reached the crease 90 seconds late. Not 10, not 20, they were 90 seconds late.
“Many things we thought should not have happened happened, happened,” the statement read. Although I wouldn’t say it was something I’m particularly proud of, there was a build-up to that event. It wasn’t just a blip.
We had no desire to do that in any way. There are a lot of emotions involved in your game, which you are trying to win. Sometimes emotions “come out of nowhere” when you witness things happening that shouldn’t.
Gill was the only person who spoke before Stokes, so he was not given the opportunity to directly refute the claim that his team had violated the spirit of the game.
Before the Lord’s Test, England were “too nice,” according to batter Harry Brook who revealed coach Brendon McCullum’s assessment on Monday. Stokes concured.
It’s great when we can go out and do what we did there, and we were able to back it up with our actions, Stokes said to BBC Sport. “Maybe too nice is a good way to put it.
Stokes was unwavering in his conviction that neither team engaged in any unacceptable behavior despite the frequent flashpoints over the Lord’s Test’s final two days.
“Conversations and back-and-forth you see out in the middle can occasionally be overanalyzed and criticized,” Stokes said.
No one would have cried out in disbelief over what we said to one another. In these days, we’re very quick to impose that kind of a ban. Simply put, it demonstrates desire and passion. Both teams want to win, but neither does.
It never goes over the line, and the captain is responsible for pulling it back if it does. At no point did India cross the line, and at no point did we do so”.
If England wins the fourth Test in Manchester, they will be victorious with a game to play. In nine of their nine previous appearances, India has won, while England has only lost once in this match.
Stokes said his team won’t seek conflict at Old Trafford despite how well the aggression at Lord’s served England.
We won’t go out and start it off on its own because I don’t want it to distract us from the topic of the week’s purpose, Stokes said.
“It was nice that we said we wouldn’t let any team feel intimidated by us.”
Making sure that isn’t the main goal is the confrontation, they say, not to shy away from it. It does it in a good way by controlling everything along with your emotions.
In honor of former president Muhammadu Buhari, the Senate has announced its intention to hold a special session on Wednesday.  ,
Following his recent passing, the tribute session will reflect on his legacy and contributions to national development.
In honor of the former president, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) convened a special session last week.
President Bola Tinubu stated at the event on Thursday that he carried the burdens of leadership without complaint and governed the nation with restraint.
On Thursday, July 17, 2025, at the special FEC session in honor of Buhari, Tinubu (third-right).
After a protracted and unidentified illness, Buhari passed away on July 13 in London. In a ceremony attended by dignitaries both inside and outside of Nigeria, he was interred last week in Daura, Katsina State.
The former president served as Nigeria’s second-longest leader. Between 2015 and 2023, the Nigerian president was born in Katsina. Between 1983 and 1985, he served as the country’s head of state.
READ MORE: Tinubu Leads Tributes In Special FEC Session For Buhari, and He Led With Restraint.
No Recommendations Regarding the Establishment of States
Senate chamber in Nigeria. Nigerian Senate on Facebook.
In the meantime, the Senate has urged the general public to discredit unverified social media claims that the Senate Committee on Constitution Review had suggested creating new states.
Senator Abdul Ningi expressed concern over the rumored creation of widespread social media accounts, so Godswill Akpabio, the Senate’s president, provided this clarification.
No state was established by the Senate, according to Senator Akpabio, despite some communities holding meetings to discuss how to create their alleged new states.
Read more about Tinubu changing the name to Maiduguri University after Buhari.
“Of the 42 proposals I saw, none have gone through the full deliberation process. The lawmaker claimed that the state creation process is “very rigorous” and has never been completed.
New Delhi, India – After spending three decades racked with guilt, scared on sleepless nights, and often changing cities, a 48-year-old Dalit man appeared in Karnataka with information about one of the most horrific alleged crimes in India.
Emerging from hiding after 12 years, the man, who once worked as a sanitation worker at the much-revered Dharmasthala temple, told police on July 3 that he was coming forward with “an extremely heavy heart and to recover from an insurmountable sense of guilt”. As a court-protected witness, the man’s identity cannot be revealed under the law.
“I can no longer bear the burden of memories of the murders I witnessed, the continuous death threats to bury the corpses I received,” he said in his statement, reviewed by Al Jazeera, “and the pain of beatings – that if I did not bury those corpses, I would be buried alongside them”.
Now, the whistleblower wants to help in the exhumation of “hundreds of dead bodies” he buried between 1995 and 2014 – many of them women and girls, allegedly murdered after sexual assaults, but also destitute men whose murders he claims to have witnessed.
After days of sustained pressure from activists and public outcry, the Karnataka government – ruled by the opposition Congress party – has created a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the allegations of assault and murder.
So, what did the protected witness reveal in his complaint? Does the temple town have a history of rape and murder? Are more victims coming forward now?
Men serve food to pilgrims at the Dharmasthala temple [Luis Dafos/Getty Images]
‘Hundreds of bodies’: What’s in the complaint?
Situated on the scenic lower slopes of the Western Ghats, Dharmasthala, an 800-year-old pilgrimage village, is located on the banks of the Nethravathi River in the Belthangady area of the Dakshina Kannada district in Karnataka state, where nearly 2,000 devotees visit daily.
On July 11, the man, fully draped in black clothing with only a transparent strip covering his eyes, appeared at a local court in Belthangady to record his statement.
The complainant, who belongs to the Dalit community – the least privileged and often persecuted group in India’s complex caste hierarchy – joined the temple in 1995 as a sanitation worker.
At the beginning of his employment, he said in the complaint, he noticed dead bodies appearing near the river. “Many female corpses were found without clothes or undergarments. Some corpses showed clear signs of sexual assault and violence; injuries or strangulation marks indicating violence were visible on those bodies,” he noted.
However, instead of reporting this to authorities at the time, the man said he was forced to “dispose of these bodies” after his supervisors beat him up and threatened him, saying, “We will cut you into pieces; we will sacrifice all your family members.”
The supervisors, he claimed, would call him to specific locations where there were dead bodies. “Many times, these bodies were of minor girls. The absence of undergarments, torn clothes, and injuries to their private parts indicated brutal sexual assault on them,” he said. “Some bodies also had acid burn marks.”
The man has told the police and the court that he is ready to undergo any tests, including brain-mapping and a polygraph, and is willing to identify the spots of mass burials. Some sites are likely to be exhumed in the coming days.
In the nearly 20 years he worked at the temple, the man said he “buried dead bodies in several locations throughout the Dharmasthala area”.
Sometimes, as instructed, he burned dead bodies using diesel. “They would instruct me to burn them completely so that no trace would be found. The dead bodies disposed of in this manner numbered in the hundreds,” he said.
Why did he go into hiding?
By 2014, having worked there for 20 years, he said, “The mental torture I was experiencing had become unbearable.”
Then, a girl from his own family was sexually harassed by a person connected to the supervisors at the temple, leading to a realisation that the family needed “to escape from there immediately”. In December 2014, he fled Dharmasthala with his family and informed no one of his whereabouts.
Since then, the family has been living in hiding in a neighbouring state, and changing residences, he said.
“However, I am still living under the burden of guilt that does not subside,” he said. “But my conscience no longer allows me to continue this silence.”
To back his claims, the man recently visited a burial site and exhumed a skeleton; he submitted the skeleton and its photograph during exhumation to the police and the court via his lawyers.
Today, the actual number of dead bodies is not what matters to the former sanitation worker, a person closely associated with the case told Al Jazeera. They requested anonymity to speak.
“Even if it was just two or three women, and not hundreds, their lives matter,” they said, reflecting on why the whistleblower came forward. “If there is a chance at justice, their bodies getting proper rituals, we want to take it.”
A pilgrim stands near an elephant at the Dharmasthala temple [Luis Dafos/Getty Images]
Did he identify the victims?
No, he did not identify them by name. However, he detailed some of the burials in his statement to the police.
He recalled that in 2010 he was sent to a location about 500 metres (1,640ft) from a petrol pump in Kalleri, nearly 30 kilometres (19 miles) from Dharmasthala. There, he found the body of a teenage girl.
“Her age could be estimated between 12 to 15 years. She was wearing a school uniform shirt. However, her skirt and undergarments were missing. Her body showed clear signs of sexual assault. There were strangulation marks on her neck,” he noted in his statement. “They instructed me to dig a pit and bury her along with her school bag. That scene remains disturbing to this day.”
He detailed another “disturbing incident” of burying a woman’s body in her 20s. “Her face had been burned with acid. That body was covered with a newspaper. Instead of burying her body, the supervisors instructed me to collect her footwear and all her belongings and burn them with her,” he recalled.
Have similar crimes been linked to Dharmasthala in the past?
Yes. There have been repeated protests over the years regarding the discovery of bodies of rape-and-murder victims in and around Dharmasthala, dating back to the 1980s.
These protests have been sporadic but persistent, often led by local groups, families and political organisations.
In 1987, marches were organised in the town to protest the rape and murder of 17-year-old Padmalata. The demonstrations exposed alleged cover-ups by influential figures but were reportedly quashed through intimidation and legal pressure.
The town saw protests flare again in 2012 with the “Justice for Sowjanya” movement, after another teenager was raped and murdered. That case remains unsolved.
Over the decades, families and local political groups have held demonstrations and submitted memorandums to authorities, linking cases such as the 2003 disappearance of medical student Ananya Bhat to larger allegations of mass graves and unnatural deaths.
S Balan, a senior lawyer in the Karnataka High Court and a human rights activist, told Al Jazeera that the killings and mysterious disappearances in Dharmasthala date back to 1979.
“The souls of young girls are crying for justice; hundreds of girls who disappeared were abducted, were raped, and were killed,” Balan told Al Jazeera. “India has never seen this gravity of offence in its republic after independence.”
Balan also met the Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah last Wednesday with a delegation of lawyers, urging him to form the SIT to probe the alleged mass rapes and murders.
“The chief minister was serious about it. He told us that he will talk to the police and do [what’s needed],” said Balan.
How have the temple authorities reacted?
The administration of the Dharmasthala temple has long been controlled by the powerful Heggade family, with Veerendra Heggade serving as the 21st Dharmadhikari, or hereditary head, since 1968.
Heggade, a recipient of the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian award, is a member of the parliament’s upper house. He was nominated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2022.
His family wields significant influence in the region, overseeing a wide network of institutions.
In 2012, the family came under public scrutiny following the rape and murder of 17-year-old Sowjanya, a resident of Dharmasthala. Her body was discovered in a wooded area bearing signs of sexual assault and brutal violence. Sowjanya’s family has consistently alleged that the perpetrators had ties to the temple’s leadership.
In a statement shared on Sunday, July 20, the temple authorities expressed support for a “fair and transparent” investigation and expressed hope that the investigation would uncover the truth.
K Parshwanath Jain, the official spokesperson for Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala, said the whistleblower’s complaint has “triggered widespread public debate and confusion across the country”.
“In light of public demand for accountability, we understand that the state government has handed over the case to a Special Investigation Team,” he said. “Truth and belief form the foundation of a society’s ethics and values. We sincerely hope and strongly urge the SIT to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation and bring the true facts to light.”
Veerendra Heggade, head of the Dharmasthala temple, stands with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on August 31, 2016 [Handout, Prime Minister’s office]
Have the families of missing people come forward?
Yes. Sujatha Bhat, the mother of Ananya Bhat, who disappeared in 2003, has responded publicly to the whistleblower’s shocking revelations about alleged mass burials in Dharmasthala.
The 60-year-old retired CBI stenographer said she has lived in fear for more than two decades but was motivated by media reports of the worker’s testimony and the discovery of skeletal remains. She filed a new complaint with the police last Tuesday.
Bhat said she believes her daughter may have been among the many women who faced abuse and met a violent end, only to be buried without a trace.
She recalled that she was discouraged from pursuing the case further. “They told us to stop asking questions,” she reportedly said, emphasising the climate of fear and silence that surrounded Dharmasthala for decades.
Speaking with reporters after filing the complaint, Bhat appealed: “Please find my daughter’s skeletal remains and allow me to perform the funeral rites with honour.”
