These are all excuses. Even without education, one can succeed. The main reason for the poverty in Africa is not the lack of education, but the lack of family planning. Most of the continent is composed of either deserts or swamps where little agriculture is possible. And despite this, the African families continue to produce too many children. There is fierce competition for the resources, which has triggered so many civil wars and genocides. This is also the reason why millions of Africans migrate to Europe every year. The aid agencies should be educating these people about the benefits in having smaller families. But on the other hand, it looks like they are encouraging population explosion.

I have serious doubts about any major spikes for next year. One of the reasons is that the Bitcoin prices have already gone up by more than 150%, as a result of the hype surrounding block reward halving. I hope that it will not end up like Litecoin, which lost more than half of its value on the immediate aftermath of its halving. Also this time, the annual mining supply will get reduced to BTC328,125 from the previous level of BTC656,250. The earlier halving episode involved much higher amounts.

Yesterday, Kerala Blasters wasted yet another chance to get 3 points. Raphael Messi Bouli had scored for Kerala Blasters in the 75th minute, but they allowed Amine Chermiti to equalize for the Mumbai City FC after just two minutes (77th). This has become a regular occurrence for the Kerala Blasters FC. They have either lost or drawn so many of their matches, in which they took an early lead. And even the fans are frustrated with this and I heard that some of the fans are boycotting the matches.

You are right. For many of the West Indian players, this is an optimal opportunity to impress the IPL franchises ahead of this year's auctions (19th December). Most of the franchises have released large groups of players and have fat purses available with them. I won't be surprised if these younger West Indian players attract bids in excess of $500K. Out of the 971 players listed in the auctions, 34 are from West Indies. Australia is the country from where the largest number of players are taking part (55), followed by South Africa (54).

Are you sure? West Indies lost the T20I series against Afghanistan 2-1. They lost the last two matches of the series, after winning the first match. And India's wins against Bangladesh were also not "comprehensive". They also won the series 2-1, by winning the first and third matches. In T20, format, one-sided matches are rarer compared to the other formats, thanks to the short duration and the presence of T20 specialists even in minor countries such as Nepal (Lamichchane) and Ireland (Sirling, O'Brien.etc).  

I don't think that as per the existing laws, it is possible. They can't force the users to accept one particular mode of payment. That goes against the anti-monopoly regulations. They have to make other options available, else the users can take them to the court. On top of that, Facebook has long term partnerships with many of the payment processors such as PayPal and Visa. So even if Libra comes online (which looks very unlikely as of now), they won't be able to remove the other options.

The main problem with India is that it is a cricket mad nation, and that leaves very little room for the other sports. On top of that, sports is not a compulsory activity in the schools and the colleges. Compared to the school and college students from the other countries, those in India engage themselves in very little physical activity. During the spare time, they are more likely to play PUBG rather than playing some real sports. This situation needs to change and the government needs to encourage physical activity in the schools and colleges.

He has a point there. It is difficult to believe that none of the bowlers were aware of the plan. How can Warner came up with this plan, when he is not a bowler himself? Steve Smith being the captain can't escape from the responsibility as well. But there is always a thin line separating what is allowed and what is not allowed. As I had mentioned earlier, the legendary Pakistani bowlers have themselves admitted changing the condition of the ball, in order to get reverse swing. And this is something bowlers all around the world does even now.

In case he uses an escrow, or pays the entire amount upfront, then I don't think anyone should be having a problem with that. But in case he is not wiling to do that, then I am not sure whether anyone will deal with him (for sure I'll not deal with him if that is the case). A lot of scams occurs here and therefore I would recommend an escrow, if he is serious about his plans. It will benefit both the sides.

The ICC changed the rules, because according to them the audience cares more about the batsmen. The star batsmen (Virat Kohli, Steve Smith, Babar Azam.etc) have more fan following when compared to the star bowlers (Jasprit Bumrah, Mitchell Starc, Jofra Archer.etc). And in part they are right. It is the batsmen who attract the crowds, and not the bowlers. Even bowlers such as Brett Lee and Shoaib Akhtar couldn't change this. An ODI match, in which both teams score in excess of 350 will be much more well received by the crowd when compared to a match in which the average team score is 200-220.

It is true that some of the rich people are not very intelligent. Take the example of Kim Kardashian. She became a multi-millionaire by selling her nudity and by engaging in prostitution. Now these professions don't need much of an intelligence. Or we can take the example of Gina Rinehart, the richest Australian. She is not just retarded, but also arrogant and rude as well. But at the same time, it will be very difficult to find intelligent people among the poor. If someone is intelligent, then sooner or later he'll pull himself out of poverty.

There is even more negative news regarding Libra, and now I am very skeptical about this currency ever getting released. Mark Zuckerberg has set several conditions for the roll out of Libra. He recently stated that Libra will not be listed anywhere in the world, unless it gets the necessary permissions from all of the American regulators. And this may be one of the reasons behind the bearish trends for Bitcoin, which has lost 30% of its value during the last 3 months. BTW, Galaxy Digital reported losses of $68 million for its 3rd quarter and claimed that the uncertainty surrounding Libra played a large part in the losses.

Thanks for this information. I never knew that this is how the pace bowlers are classified. But calculating the speed is not very accurate. For example, wind speed, altitude and other climatic factors can also have an influence on the speed. Also, there can be a difference while using different equipment. Anyway.. I need to check the average speed of the Indian bowlers during the next series. I have seen top speeds in excess of 145 regularly, but I am not sure their average speed is greater than 140 kmph.

I still believe that it was a very stupid move from Cricket Australia to hand out 12 month ban for these two players. What they did was not right, but in my opinion their offense was not as worse as match fixing. In their case, the incident was blown out of proportion by the South African media (and picked up by their Australian counterparts). It is something that everyone does, and they were unfortunate to get caught.

My guess is that the majority of the test bowlers try to change the condition of the ball, either using external substances (such as sandpaper or Vaseline), or by using their own sweat and towel. Pakistani bowlers were infamous for their "reverse swing", which was helped by increasing the weight of one side of the ball by applying sweat (after removing the smoothness by using a towel).

And it irritated me when the uncultured crowd in England booed these two players whenever they walked in to bat. And even more irritating was the fact that the English players themselves encouraged that sort of crowd behavior. I don't think that they can label anyone as "cheaters" after what they did during the final of the 2019 CWC.

Anyway, the series is over and New Zealand won it. For them, this series was very significant, after all the controversy that surrounded the final of the cricket world cup earlier this year. The New Zealand players once again proved that despite their small sized population and lack of a franchise T20 league, they are capable of competing against the big 3 teams, which itself is a big achievement. We saw how teams such as Bangladesh and Pakistan fared against the other two big 3 teams last month, and the performance from NZ was an exception.

The real challenge will come for New Zealand when they host India after three months. It is going to be a very tough series, given the current form of the Indian players. And before that they'll face another big 3 team (Australia) for a series of two test matches.

Well.. there is a catch. When an exchange gets hacked, they are not losing their own money. Most of the funds that get stolen belongs to the users. And that is also one of the reasons why the exchanges are somewhat complacent with the hacks. On the other hand, if they distribute the bu bounty, then the amount has to come from their own funds. And that is the problem. Not many of the exchange owners will be willing to spend their own money, in order to identify and eliminate the bugs.

Anyone can make crazy predictions of their liking, but it is not guaranteed that all of these predictions will realize. John McAfee made a prediction a few years back that Bitcoin will touch $1,000,000 per coin level by 2020. We are less than a month away from 2020, and till now there have been no sign of any such big price movement. Reaching a price of $4K would be requiring a lot more than integration with Telegram. I agree that Telegram is one of the most popular messaging/social media platforms. But I don't think that it alone can propel BCH to 4K level.

Three T20 matches and three ODI matches in the series, with the first one scheduled for this Friday. Initially I was surprised that they didn't included any test matches. But later I realized that they made the right decision. Recently we had some very one-sided test matches in India against South Africa and Bangladesh. I don't think that the West Indians will fare any better than these teams. So I have to say that it was good thinking from the BCCI to exclude any test matches.

I can see that a lot of the users are still confident about the prices going up in the near future (may be due to the hype surrounding block reward halving). But I have run out of patience. I have held on to most of my coins ever since 2014 (almost 6 years) and now I think it is time to sell a part of the coins. I have decided that I will sell 25% of my coins in 2020 (around 2% every month). I am still very confident about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but I can't ignore the risk factors associated with it.

Rain once again interrupts the match at Hamilton, but there was enough time in the morning session for Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor to complete their centuries. Another inspection is due in around 20 minutes from now and I strongly suspect that the remainder of the day's play will be called off. The match ends in a draw and New Zealand wins the series 1-0. This win will offer some sort of consolation for New Zealand, after the controversial manner in which England won the final of the CWC 2019.

2019 is having a very congested cricketing calendar. We have three international series starting this month. These are:

1. Sri Lankan tour of Pakistan: 2 test matches, first one starting on 11th December
2. New Zealand tour of Australia: 2 test matches, first one starting on 12th December
3. England tour of South Africa: 4 test matches, first one starting on 26th December