Persistent rain wiped out play in the pre-lunch session — a two hours and 35 minutes delay — which left Sri Lanka with little time to enforce a win despite declaring their second innings at 181-6, setting Pakistan a target of 255 in a possible of 61 overs.
By tea, Sri Lanka had taken three early wickets and were pressing for a win. Pakistan lost a further fourth wicket when opener Taufiq Umar fell for 39, before they finished at 87-4 when umpires called off the match four overs earlier due to bad light.
Skipper Misbah-ul Haq (nine) and Asad Shafiq (seven) survived some anxious moments to salvage a draw.
Pakistan won the second Test in Dubai by nine wickets after the first in Abu Dhabi ended in a draw. The result kept Pakistan on the sixth ranking, as they needed a 2-0 victory to jump one place up and replace Sri Lanka on fifth.
Pakistan started positively before losing Mohammad Hafeez (13), Azhar Ali (seven) and Younis Khan (11) in the space of 37 runs.
Hafeez had struck a boundary in the first over by Chanaka Welegedara but fell in an unwise manner, run out after taking a sharp single as he failed to beat a direct throw from mid-wicket by substitute Lahiru Thirimanne.
Ali, who scored a maiden hundred in the second Test, was trapped leg-before wicket by left-arm spinner Rangana Herath before Younis played an uppish drive off Welegedara and was caught at mid-on.
Umar miscued a drive off spinner Suraj Randiv and was caught by Kumar Sangakkara at point, leaving Pakistan at 77-4.
Sri Lanka, who have now gone 13 Tests without a win since beating India at Galle in 2009, had hoped to score some quick runs in order to set Pakistan a target and then get their rivals out for a victory.
But overnight rain and constant drizzle forced the umpires to keep the team away from the ground, part of which remained covered during the morning session.
When play finally resumed 35 minutes after lunch, Sri Lanka lost Kosala Kulasekara (seven) before declaring the innings at 181-6, after 2.2 overs of batting.
Opener Tharanga Paranavitana remained not out 76, made off 168 balls with five boundaries and a six.
Off-spinner Saeed Ajmal finished with 3-50 and paceman Umar Gul took 2-44.
The series highlighted Sri Lanka’s batting frailties, especially in the first innings where they were bowled out for 197 and 239 in the first two Tests.
If not for Kumar Sangakkara’s 516 runs in six innings at 86.00, Sri Lanka would have been hard pressed to save the two matches.
Pakistan can take consolation from the fact that they have not lost a single series since the spot-fixing and corruption scandal of last year which ended in jail terms for their former Test captain Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer.
Both teams will now start a five-match one-day series with the first game in Dubai on November 11. They will also play a Twenty20 in Abu Dhabi on November 25.
Pakistan are playing “home” tests in the Gulf region due to security concerns in their own country.
Dhoni scored an unbeaten 87 off 70 balls to push the injury-ravaged India to 300-7 after he won the toss and chose to bat on a sluggish wicket at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium.
England, crushing India at home, were shot out for 174 in 36.1 overs to hand India the early lead in the five-match series.
Captain Alastair Cook top-scored with 60, but England lost their last eight wickets for 63 runs after being comfortably placed at 111-2 in the 23rd over.
Left-arm spinner Ravinda Jadeja and off-break bowler Ravichandran Ashwin grabbed three wickets each and seamer Umesh Yadav claimed two in front of 25,000 home fans.
Dhoni's men had been blanked 4-0 in the Test series and 3-0 in the one-dayers on their recent tour of England.
The hosts defended the total with a new-look bowling attack in which three specialists, Vinay Kumar, Yadav and Ashwin, had played only 25 one-dayers between them before Friday's match.
England were reduced to 40-2 by the 10th over before Cook and Jonathan Trott (26) put on 71 for the third wicket.
Jadeja turned the match around by removing both batsmen in successive overs, Cook holing out in the deep and Trott being bowled to make England 120-4.
The tourists slipped further to 134-7 as Ashwin dismissed Ravi Bopara and Tim Bresnan and Jadeja took care of Jonathan Bairstow.
Yadav bowled Graeme Swann and Samit Patel, before Ashwin signalled India's win by bowling out the last man Jade Dernbach.
Earlier, Suresh Raina made 61 off 55 balls and added 72 for the fifth wicket with Dhoni after India were reduced to 123-4 by the 29th over.
Jadeja chipped in with 27 off 22 balls at the end as India scored 91 runs in the last 10 overs.
England's bowlers contained the top order despite the absence of pace spearhead James Anderson, who was rested for the five-match series, and the injured Stuart Broad.
The second one-dayer will be played in New Delhi on Monday.
A cash-strapped woman's football team is hoping to draw the crowds - by playing their next game in bikinis.
Members of the FC Rossiyanka team, from Krasnoarmeysk near Moscow, have already done a pre-publicity shoot to promote the event.Coach Tatyana Egorova said: "We are the best woman's team in Russia and have won many championships, even representing our country in the UEFA Champions League.
"But few people have ever heard of us and we don't get many people coming to games so we've decided to give our profile a boost by appearing in bikinis.
"We hope it will also improve the numbers of tickets we sell. We think it's a good idea - our players are beautiful, great athletes and determined to win."
She’d like to see how far this passion might take her, but not if it means compromising her religious beliefs.
Seems perfectly reasonable.
Yet Abdullah, a 35-year-old Atlantan, has been barred from entering the US senior nationals in Iowa next month. The problem: Her Muslim faith requires that she cover her arms, legs and head—which violates international rules governing weightlifting attire.
“I’d hate to think that just because you dress a certain way, you can’t participate in sports,” Abdullah said Thursday.
“I don’t want other women who dress like me to say, ‘I can’t get involved in that sport’ and get discouraged. It would be nice to have an environment where it wouldn’t be an issue of how you dress or having different beliefs and faiths.”
She’s right. It’s time for sports to show the rest of society how to bridge the gap between legitimate concerns and religious tolerance.
“What we hear all the time is, ‘You’ve got to empower Muslim women around the world,”’ said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which has taken up Abdullah’s cause.
“Well, how can you empower a Muslim woman more than being a weightlifter? She should be encouraged and helped along in this process. There shouldn’t be arbitrary roadblocks placed in her path.”
Abdullah got a bit of good news Thursday when USA Weightlifting agreed to take her case to the IWF later this month.
This, of course, is a bigger issue than any one sport, any single athlete.
We’ve seen virulent protests erupt over plans to build an Islamic center near the site of the World Trade Center in New York. We’ve heard Muslims complain about being singled out in France, where authorities have tried to enforce the nation’s secular foundations with a ban on burqa-style veils.
It’s an ongoing struggle in sports, too—with some compromise, but not nearly enough.
Muslim women have competed in track and field wearing neck-to-ankle bodysuits and the traditional headscarf known as a hijab, most notably Roqaya Al-Gassra of Bahrain, who made it to the semifinals of the 200 meters at the Beijing Olympics.
Then again, Iran’s female soccer team recently had to forfeit an Olympic qualifier match in Jordan because the players wanted to wear Islamic head scarves. International governing body FIFA, which hasn’t exactly come across as the most upstanding institution in recent weeks, defended its decision by saying the scarves are banned for safety reasons.
As if to show it wasn’t singling out any particular religion, the organization also has prohibited neck warmers used during chilly winter matches in the English Premier League. FIFA president Sepp Blatter said the so-called “snoods” could be used to “hang somebody.”
Hey, if soccer is worried about someone trying to strangle a player by grabbing a hijab or a neck warmer, there are bigger issues to address. And Iran’s youth team already had been allowed to take the field last year at a major Olympic-style event wearing specially designed caps that protected their modesty.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad weighed in the latest row, describing FIFA as “dictators and colonialists who want to impose their lifestyle on others.”
Every religion has its own peculiarities, which might seem odd to those on the outside but are perfectly reasonable to the faithful. Stifling religious traditions and practices is a very slippery slope indeed, one that sport should make every effort to avoid.
Of course, there are rules that might run afoul of a particular religion but legitimately prevent someone from gaining an unfair advantage. For instance, swimming has banned high-tech bodysuits that led to a rash of world records, ruling they compromised the integrity of the sport. These days, females can only wear shoulder-to-knee suits that leave their arms and lower legs exposed.
If a Muslim women wanted to wear a full-coverage swim suit on religious grounds, she would clearly have an advantage in the pool.
Abdullah isn’t trying to gain any sort of competitive edge, however.
She merely wants to abide by her beliefs when she’s snatching a bar full of weights above her head. When first starting out, she was allowed to enter local meets wearing garb that made her comfortable on the inside and out: Loose-fitting exercise pants, a tight-fitting long-sleeve shirt with a T-shirt over it, and the head scarf.
As she attempted to move up to higher-level competitions, she ran up against International Weightlifting Federation rules, which forbid suits that cover either the knees or elbows because judges must be able to see that both have been locked out to complete a lift.
OK, that’s understandable. But Abdullah said a tight-fitting shirt allows judges to get a good look at her elbows. And, if it meant ensuring a level playing field, she’d certainly be willing to wear a leg covering that conforms to her religion but allows the judges to determine whether she’s completed a lift. Considering all the advances in athletic apparel, that shouldn’t be a major issue.
If the IWF agrees to alter its rules, she might still get a chance to do some snatches and clean-and-jerks at next month’s national meet. While she’s not yet lifting at an Olympic level, she hasn’t given up on that dream.
“She’s not seeking any kind of advantage. She’s seeking to maintain her religious principles,” Hooper said.
“In an atmosphere of goodwill, these things can always be resolved.”
Seems perfectly reasonable.
In a telephonic interview, foreign secretary said that it is not that we have forbidden our team from going there. Security is always an issue and we always like to be sure about security when we allow our teams to go there.
I think cricket sometimes becomes an instrument of diplomacy, she said and added that we have seen how cricket matches have been played between India and Pakistan in the past. People in both countries have supported the idea of such contacts.
Rao said this has to be discussed between the cricketing fraternities on both sides and taken forward.
The meeting between the Prime Ministers of two countries at Mohali on March 30 on the sidelines of the cricket World Cup semifinal between the two countries, "has given a new direction" to the bilateral relationship, Rao said in the interview.
Manmohan Singh had invited Gilani to Mohali after India and Pakistan advanced to the World Cup semifinal.
She said that India was open to renewing cricketing contacts with Pakistan.
