Pace bowling great Wasim Akram has urged Pakistan and India’s cricketers to ignore the noise and enjoy the game when they meet in a highly charged Asia Cup T20 match on Sunday.

The Group A match in Dubai is the first clash on the cricket field between the countries since a military conflict four months ago took relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours to their lowest point in decades.

India resisted calls to boycott the match between the pair, who have not played in any bilateral series since the deadly attacks in Mumbai in 2008.

“Enjoy, it’s a game of cricket,” legendary left-armer Akram said ahead of the Sunday match, which potentially could be the first of three high-octane meetings between the countries in the T20 tournament.

“Forget about everything other than cricket. One team will win, and one team will lose,” he said.

“Just enjoy the moment if you win the game. Pressure will come, enjoy that and show discipline because this is just a game. It’s for both teams and for both sets of fans.”

A full house of 25,000 is expected at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium and Akram recalled how he thrived in such pressure situations during his 19-year international career.

“I enjoyed every game against India, and so did players from the opposition,” said Akram, who led a Pakistan touring team to India in 1999 despite threats from extremists.

The 59-year-old was also part of Pakistan’s 1987 tour during which the two countries came close to war.

Akram advised an inexperienced Pakistan team to think of the bigger picture and not get carried away by the hype of playing T20 world champions and arch-rivals India.

“Pakistan have a chance as they won a tri-series last week,” said Akram, referring to a T20 series with Afghanistan and the UAE.

“They should not think that we just need to win against India, think of winning the Asia Cup,” he said.

“You can lose to a big team, but even then, stand up and play well in the tournament.

“I don’t think the match will be one-sided like India against UAE,” said Akram of India’s opening romp on Wednesday, where they needed just 4.3 overs to reach their target after dismissing the hosts for 57.

“Anything can happen in this tournament.”

Robert Ellis Orrall, a Massachusetts songwriter, has revealed that he began writing songs after being inspired by Taylor Swift.

Speaking to CBS, the 50-year-old actor shared that he met the pop star decades ago, when she was about to write her debut studio album.

“I am a songwriter, because that’s why I started trying to be a musician, because I wanted to write songs,” said Robert.

Talking about his first encounter with Taylor, the songwriter said, “She was 13, 14, 15 [and was on] RCA. She was originally on RCA, a lot of people don’t know that she was on RCA.”

“And then they wanted me to write with her so we wrote and then she had fun,” he added, referring to the singer’s song, I‘m Only Me When I’m with You.

Later in the interview, Robert also praised Taylor, saying, “I’ve written with a lot of young people, but she was pretty extraordinary.”

“Her confidence…she just had a thing. And I told her dad, when he came to pick her up, your daughter’s gonna sell 300 million on her first record, and I was wrong, I was off by like 7 million,” he added.

For those unversed, Robert also wrote songs for Lindsay Lohan. He penned the track Ultimate for the movie, Freaky Friday.

“Disney got in touch with me and said we wanna use ‘Ultimate’ in ‘Freakier Friday,'” he said.

Robert shared that he’s still making music with his band. In 2024, he released an album, Wrong Thing.

Demi Lovato has finally reacted to one of the most talked-about viral moments.

During her appearance at the Just Trish Podcast, the host Trisha Paytas asked about the infamous 2021 clip from Unidentified with Demi Lovato in which the singer sang her hit Skyscraper.

Lovato laughed and said, “I was so stoned.”

She went on to explain that while she is “very spiritual” and believe in the paranormal, the viral moment makes her cringe when she looks back.

“I am very spiritual and I do believe in the paranormal and things like that, I will not deny that at all. The whole show is about me going and finding aliens and ghosts and doing that fun stuff.” she said.

Admitting that it was the time when she just happened to be smoking a lot of weed, Lovato added, “I honestly haven’t watched it back because I cringe out of my soul but it’s also such a funny moment now that I can laugh at it and go, ‘Wait. That’s amazing.”

“Why not own it? I’ve said really silly things or done really silly things and I just — you have to own it. If you don’t own it people will laugh at you. What’s better than laughing at yourself? I love laughing at myself,” Lovato said.

The unidentified clip, which originally aired on Peacock, has resurfaced repeatedly online, with fans both amused and intrigued by Demi Lovato’s ghost-serenade.