There is enough time available with the Indians, as most of the international players such as Virat Kohli and Mahendra Sigh Dhoni never participate in the domestic season. On average, India plays around 30 ODIs, 20 T20s and 7-8 test matches per year. There is enough time for at least short stints of 2-3 weeks in the county cricket. I guess that the players are not interested because the county salaries are much lower when compared to the IPL wages.

I would rather say that the schedule for the Indian cricketers have become more relaxed nowadays. One decade ago, most of the senior players used to participate in 40+ ODI matches and 10+ test matches every year. On top of that, it was not very rare to find players taking part in the domestic competitions, by representing their state sides.

Rather than replacing gold, I would like to see Bitcoin being held in a similar regard with respect to the former. Gold is now primarily used as a store of value. We can have Bitcoin also used for the same purpose. Unlike the fiat investments, Bitcoin is protected from inflation and therefore we are assured that the purchasing power will not go down over the time. This makes it similar to gold and can therefore be used to protect your wealth. Gold is in use for the past several thousand years and it may not be very realistic to replace it.

I don't think that these countries are happy with the existence of Bitcoin. But among them, some of the countries (Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Singapore.etc) have realized that as a decentralized asset it is not possible to ban Bitcoin. So they have regulated and legalized the status of Bitcoin in their jurisdictions. Japan has been the role model in this regard.

However, some of the countries such as China and India have taken a more hostile stance. Their approach is to terrorize anyone who dares to transact or trade Bitcoin, so that people would refrain from using it. And from what we have seen, this policy has failed miserably. Both these countries have some of the largest number of Bitcoin users in the world.

I personally know a few guys who made their investment during December 2017, when the prices were at its peak. But there is nothing that we can do about it. These sport of bubbles and crashes happen with most of the investment assets. Even during the dot com boom in 2000, there were a lot of people who invested in stocks such as Yahoo and Microsoft at peak prices. Either they can book losses and exit, or hold on to their assets for a few years and wait until the prices recover. Both the options have risks attached to them.

Well.. I have to admit that this is a very weird question. It is like asking whether you want to die after being shot by a firing squad, or by getting a lethal injection. Both are bad, and there is no real choice between the two. And there is no point in saying that one of them is less dangerous than the other, because the end result is the same for both.

In my case, I can confidently say that I am neither addicted to tobacco, nor addicted to gambling. So I may not be the best person to give an opinion on this subject. But like I said, both can be bad for you, and you can't have a preference for one over the other. This question is very tricky and the OP is trying to paint gambling addiction in a more favorable color by comparing it with something similar.

I was feeling dejected after the recent price crash of Bitcoin. But a few minutes back I was checking Bitstamp and found that the prices have moved up by +14% during the last few hours. Searched for the reason behind this sudden price movement and was surprised to find that Xi Jinping's comment on Blockchain technology caused the spike this time. Normally it is China which plays a major part whenever the prices crash. For a change, they have triggered a spike this time. Let's see whether we can touch $10K this week. 

My question is why do we want people to treat Bitcoin as a currency? IMO, Bitcoin is more suitable for usage as an investment asset, or as a store of value. If we treat it as a currency, then we are comparing it to fiat currencies such as the USD, EUR and JPY. On the other hand if we use it as an asset, then we are comparing it with gold, diamonds.etc. And my opinion is that gold is a much better option when compared to the inflation-prone fiat currencies. We would be better if we place BTC along with assets such as gold and platinum.

You are getting bored because India is playing against weak teams such as South Africa, Sri Lanka and West Indies. Do you really think that they will be able to repeat the same performance against stronger sides such as Australia and England? This is why I have always supported two divisions in test cricket. India should not be playing against teams such as South Africa very often.

But then, we need to look at the grass roots as well. The population of India is around 1.35 billion and cricket remains as the no.1 sport here. On the other hand, teams such as New Zealand have very small population (4 million in case of NZ), and cricket is not the most popular sport there. So obviously you can expect a huge gap in terms of the standards.

I guess you are from Kerala. While I agree that Sanju Samson is one of the future stars for India, I am not that optimistic about Sandeep Warrier. He is a good bowler, but he doesn't have the pace that is needed at the international level. He is more of a medium pace bowler, with limited attack variety. I watched him playing in the Duleep Trophy. He looked quite ordinary.

Also, you need to remember that there is a lot of competition for the pace bowling slots now. Two of the slots are fixed (Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami). Ishant is currently the third choice pacer, with Umesh giving tough competition to him. Then there are other bowlers such as Jaydev Unadkat, Avesh Khan, Ankit Rajpoot, Ishan Porel, Basil Thampi and Varun Aaron playing for the B team.

Watched the Namibia vs Kenya T20 match today (T20 World Cup Qualifier). There was some terrific hitting by the Namibian batsmen, who amassed more than 70 runs during the last 5 overs (many thanks to Star Sports 3 for showing the matches in India). Now Namibia is having a very good chance of qualifying for the semi-finals, with 6 points from 5 matches. However, even now the situation is not clear. Almost all the teams still have a chance of qualifying with one match each remaining.


India is still searching for a replacement for Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Wriddhiman Saha is 35, and I don't think that the selectors are going to consider him in the long term. The first choice is Rishabh Pant, but his recent form was not very good. And this is where the opportunity comes in for Sanju Samson. His only disadvantage is that he hails from one of the smaller state boards.

Bangladesh is recently facing a lot of player dissent and their performance during the past few matches were substandard. They lost a test match against Afghanistan on a pitch that was doctored to aid their spinners. I don't think that a team that has lost to Afghanistan at home is capable of challenging India, either in India, or in any other location.

Unfortunately, the same can be said about many of the other test sides, such as Sri Lanka, South Africa, West Indies and Pakistan. Their standards have gone down during the past few years and the gap between them and the big three sides (India, England and Australia) have widened. Only New Zealand is performing well among the teams outside the big three.

I don't understand why so many people complain about the volatility. It is one of the basic traits of Bitcoin. If you don't want to invest in a volatile asset, then there are huge number of other options such as bank fixed deposits, treasury bonds and bullion bars. So please don't complain if the prices go down by 10% or 15% in a day (I guess that the users have issues only when the prices go down).

BTW, in my opinion users should not get worried too much with the daily variations. Please look at the bigger picture. If you guys remember, the exchange rate was somewhere around $3,000 per coin a few months back. Even with the 10% decline that we had this week, the prices are still around 150% higher when compared to the previous level.

How the project is going to move on, without support from Facebook? Most of the partner companies joined in Libra, because Facebook was there as the pioneer. Most of those remaining companies (Visa, Mastercard, Paypal.etc have already pulled out) will terminate their participation, in case Facebook shows little interest in the project. And even if some of them remain with the project, I don't think that it may move ahead as planned. So my prediction is that Libra would die, in case FB pulls out from the project.

Bitcoin prices went down this week as well, but it didn't had anything to do with the repo rates or the printing of the banknotes. The spike that we had a few months back (when the prices jumped from $3,000 to $12,000 per coin) was caused by the announcement of Libra. And the crash that happened this week (prices dropped by 10% in one day to $7,400), was also caused by rumors that Libra project would be placed on cold storage. Sadly, as of now Bitcoin is not a mature asset that will be more influenced by the news from central banks, rather than rumors from FaceBook and Visa.

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.