We are having another eventful day with the ICC Men's T20 World Cup Qualifiers. Today one of the tournament favorites (Netherlands) lost to Papua New Guinea. In other matches, Nigeria lost to the United Arab Emirates, and Hong Kong managed to defeat Canada. Group A is still looking very much indecisive and other than Bermuda, any of the other 6 teams can qualify.

The last match for today is Bermuda vs Scotland. If Scotland manage to win this one, then they will be in a position to qualify to the semi-finals. That said, in the other group Ireland is looking to be in a lot of trouble. They have only 4 points from 4 matches, and there are three teams with 6 points each (Canada, Oman and UAE). For Ireland, qualifying for the next round is going to be tough.

The owner of CSK was placing bets on his own team. And he was betting against the Chennai Super Kings. Anyone with an IQ level of more than 80 would understand what was going on. But they got away with just a slap on the wrist. After two years, they were re-admitted to the IPL. None of the players were even investigated, and the wife of the accused (Rupa Gurunath) was recently elected as the president of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA).

Now compare this to the treatment meted out to S Sreesanth (who was in the camp which was opposed to N Srinivasan). He was banned for life, and the BCCI refused to reconsider the decision even after he was acquitted by the court. On the other hand, Gurunath Meiyappan admitted his guilt and was back in power after two years. Sreesanth always claimed that the conspiracy against him was hatched by the right-hand man of Srinivasan, Dinesh Karthik. Sreesanth was one of the best pace bowlers back then and his career was destroyed. Karthik on the other hand got a huge number of opportunities, although he was completely useless.  

If I am not wrong, the cheapest tickets for one day of international test match is placed at around $10. This may look very insignificant to those living in the Western nations. But for the vast majority of the Indians, this amount is more than their daily wages. So if they reduce the ticket prices to somewhere around $2, then they'll be able to attract much larger crowds.

There is a lot of interest for cricket in India, and I have seen crowd numbering thousands even for Ranji Trophy matches. If we have empty stadiums during international matches, then the only reason is the high ticket prices. I have heard that in Pakistan and Sri Lanka, the lowest tier of the tickets are priced at $2-3. The BCCI can also follow their example.

Almost impossible to predict now. More than half the matches have been completed in the group stage and even now there are no front-runners. There is so much competition between these 14 teams and all of them looks evenly matched (perhaps with the exception of Bermuda, who looked hapless out there). Nigeria also doesn't have any points, but they have played well till now.

In the Group A, the Netherlands is on top with 6 points, while the other 5 teams have 4 points each. So it is very difficult to predict which teams are going to qualify. My guess is that Netherlands, Scotland and Namibia will finish as the top 3 teams from this group. Group B is even more difficult to predict, especially after today's defeat from Ireland. My guess - Canada, Oman, and Ireland.

Well.. I am someone who got scammed multiple times in the internet. Back then, I was too young and my mistake was that I used to blindly trust strangers. I lost a lot of money, but even then I am glad that I learnt a few lessons in my life as a result of these scams. I took each one of these scams as a lesson. And made sure not to repeat them in my life thereafter. And I am glad to say that no one has managed to scam me for the last 4-5 years.

I never said that the Indian seamers performed badly abroad. On the other hand, they are the only group of players performing on a consistent basis. Others (batsmen and the spinners) fail to perform in a convincing manner when matches occur outside the subcontinent. Well... Virat Kohli is an exception, as he performs irrespective of the nature of the pitch and the strength of the opposition bowling attack. And the Indian batting record abroad would look pathetic, if you take out Kohli from the playing XI.

It is not like India is invincible. Outside the sub-continent, they depend a lot on Virat Kohli. The other batsmen perform really well in Indian pitches, but they become paper tigers abroad. The same can be said about the bowler as well. Apart from Jasprit Bumrah, none of the Indian bowlers have the ability to perform abroad in a consistent manner. Spinners such as Ravichandran Ashwin are useless outside the subcontinent. If they want to become the world champions, then they need to perform on all types of surfaces.

^^^ This is going to be a very exciting tournament for sure. And I am surprised that players representing smaller nations, such as Sandeep Lamichhane (Nepal) and Mohammad Nabi/Rashid Khan/Mujib ur Rahman (Afghanistan) managed to find a place in the squads. Even Netherlands is represented (Roelof van der Merwe and Ryan ten Doeschate).

But the most surprising is the influx of the Kolpak players, including Dane Vilas, Rilee Rossouw, Hardus Viljoen, David Wiese, Kyle Abbott (the same bowler who retired from international cricket in protesting the quota policy in South Africa), Marchant de Lange, Dawid Malan, Jade Dernbach, Leus du Plooy.etc. Imagine what could happen if all these players make themselves available for South Africa...

South Africans should be happy about it. The torture is going to end very soon. Just one more wicket by the Indian bowlers and it is going to be all over. For South Africa this series was a very humiliating experience. They need to do something radical to stay afloat in international cricket. For a start, they can abolish the quota system, at least for the matches involving the senior team.

They had a few moments to cheer, such as the half-centuries from Keshav Maharaj and Dane Piedt. The lower order batsmen showed a lot of valor and spirit, when the top order surrendered without a fight. I am watching international cricket ever since I was a small kid. And I would say that this was the worst performance by any team in India. Even Zimbabwe had performed better than this when they toured India the last time.

Nothing is certain as of now. Some 60 overs of play was lost due to poor light during the first two days of play. And if this continues for the remainder of the match, then India may find it difficult to bowl out the South Africans twice (despite assistance from the Ranchi pitch). A lot will depend upon whether South Africa is able to avoid follow on or not. If they manage to score 300 plus, then the chances are that this match will end up as a draw, which by itself is going to be a great achievement for the Proteas. They don't have the capability to defeat India abroad, and this is the best they can hope for. But in order to get to a draw, their lower order needs to perform one more time. However, this time there is no Keshav Maharaj or Senuran Muthusamy in the playing XI.

I think that he was mentioning about players such as Tim Murtagh, who chose to play for Middlesex rather than representing Ireland. From this year onward, the Irish players are counted as overseas players in county cricket and they need to retire from international cricket if they want to be counted as local players. The only player who has chosen Ireland over county cricket is Paul Stirling. He was associated with Middlesex for more than 10 years, but retired from county cricket when the management asked him to stop playing for Ireland. Boyd Rankin was lucky, as he managed to sign as an overseas player.

And it should be remembered that the best player Ireland has ever produced (Eoin Morgan) was stolen by England without giving any sort of compensation to the Irish board. Now many of their star performers, such as Tim Murtagh, Stuart Poynter and Peter Chase have decided to go for county cricket rather than representing Ireland. Cricket in Ireland will never be viable if this situation continues. If their best players refuse to represent the national side, then how are they going to be successful?

Along with Fakhar Zaman, Babar Azam is one of the most important players in the Pakistani batting lineup. And this is exactly why I don't want him to be under any sort of pressure. I still remember the time when Sachin Tendulkar was made the captain of India. Back then Sachin wanted the captaincy, but in the end the board decided to relieve him of this position after his performance as a batsmen got affected. And that's how Saurav Ganguly became the captain. And Ganguly became one of the most successful Indian captains of all time.

I don't know. In football, clubs are more important than the international sides. International matches happen only once in a while, and only a few tournaments such as the World Cup and the Asian cup are important. On the other hand, each of the clubs play 50+ matches in a given year and their fan following is huge. Clubs such as Manchester United and Real Madrid have hundreds of millions of fans all over the globe. And this is also one of the reasons why football is not very big in India. Most of the Indians are interested in international matches, and such matches are rare with football.

India has some of the oldest football clubs in the wold. Clubs such as Mohun Bagan A.C. and Churchill Brothers S.C. boast  of millions of fans. But somehow they have failed to catch the attention of the mainstream Indian. However the ISL is changing this situation. With the involvement of famous foreign players, corporate giants and sports broadcasters, ISL has managed to become mainstream in India. And hopefully, with that we'll be witnessing a rise in popularity for football in India.

Hmm.. good for you. I don't have such a luxury, because I don't trust anyone with my coins. It was my husband who introduced me to the world of cryptocurrency back in 2014. I haven't shared my backup or private keys even with him. Sharing them with siblings is also out of question. I don't trust them 100% as well. For now, I am the only one who can access my coins. If something happens to me, then $30,000 worth of coins will be lost. But that's the way it is going to be. Don't have any other option right now.

Out of this 18 million, how many are lost coins? The biggest stash is BTC980,000 which belongs to Satoshi Nakamoto. I am not sure about the exact amount of lost coins, but a few months back I came across an article which claimed that 5 million BTC can't be spent, because no one have the private keys to access those coins. Another study measured the amount of lost coins at 4 million. Here is the breakup:



After 2032, I guess the miners will be getting most of their reward from the transaction fee, and not from the block reward. Because by then the block reward will be only BTC0.78.

Volodymyr Zelensky is not the sole pro-Bitcoin politician in Ukraine. A few months back, the Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada) made it mandatory for the lawmakers to reveal their cryptocurrency holdings. One of the MPs declared that he holds BTC465 in his wallets, which is worth more than $4 million. A few of the other lawmakers also revealed that they hold cryptocurrency. As per the affidavits, Oleksandr Urbansky owns BTC2,492 and Dmitry Belotserkovets holds BTC398. And the most surprising case is that of MP Dmitri Golubov. He declared that he is holding a massive BTC8,752 in his wallets (worth around $80 million). In total, 57 officials declared that they own Bitcoin.

Yeah.. it can be very difficult to find out which channel is covering which tournament. And this is the situation in India, where we have multiple broadcasters available in the cable TV network:

1. Star Sports: the giant out there. They have more than a dozen channels in India, including at least 6 HD channels. They hold the right to broadcast ICC tournaments such as the ODI and T20 world cups. And more importantly, they hold the broadcast rights for the Indian Premier League as well. Their schedule can be found here: https://www.startv.com/tv-guide?Genre=Sports

2. Sony TEN-ESPN: The second major sports network with at least 4 HD channels. They recently covered the India tour of West Indies and the Ashes. Their schedule can be found here: https://www.sonypicturessportsnetwork.com/schedule/today

3. D Sports: This is one of the smaller networks. They don't have any HD channels, and they cover some of the T20 leagues such as the Pakistan Super League, Afghan T20 tournament and the BPL. Here is their schedule: http://www.dsport.in/tv-listings/

4. Youtube: With rising interest in live streaming, a number of cricket boards have made live streaming in YouTube available.

5. Mobile Apps: Hotstar, Fancode.etc cover some of the tournaments live.

LOL... I think you have trolled Sarfaraz Ahmed to the limit. Now perhaps it is time to move on... unless you want to turn your attention to Sarfaraz Khan (who will be playing for Kings XI Punjab in the next IPL season).

BTW, Moin Khan has come out against Misbah-ul-Haq, after Sarfaraz got sacked as the captain. Moin has a point here. It was Sarfaraz Ahmed who took Pakistan to the no.1 slot in the T20 rankings. Sarfaraz  is the same guy who led Pakistan to 11 consecutive series victories in the T20 format. And now Misbah-ul Haq want to hide his own failures by making a scapegoat out of Sarfaraz. As per Moin, both Misbah and Waqar Younis held personal enemity against Sarfaraz.

The Chinese government and the central bank has tried many times to shut down the Bitcoin mining and destroy the idea of cryptocurrency. But they were never successful in this. They even banned the trading of cryptocurrency to fiat. And the exchanges responded by replacing fiat (CNY) with Tether (USDT). Whatever measures the Chinese government take to discourage the usage of Bitcoin in their territory, it is only going to backfire upon them. It will be better for them to take a less hostile approach, similar to what the South Koreans have done.

As I said earlier, Star Sports 3 is only broadcasting some of the matches. Yesterday, they showed 2 out of the 5 matches and today, they covered only one match. I checked Hotstar as well, they are also not covering the matches that are not shown LIVE on Star Sports 3. This is one of the disadvantages in giving the TV rights to Star. They will show useless Kabaddi matches LIVE, but they never care to cover cricket matches involving the smaller nations. And ever worse, they won't allow anyone else to stream these matches as well, as they hold the TV/Web rights to these matches. Star Sports is having close to a dozen different channels in India, and it is disappointing that they are not covering most of these matches.