No doubt the hard work and commitment by the Afghanistan team paid off well but tomorrow is a big match for them.
Tomorrow is a very important match which will play in between Afghanistan and South Africa, it is a semi-final that is why we are all have interest in it and it will played at Tarouba.
Everyone including me is very excited to see Afghanistan's first Semi-Final progress, don’t know why but I think it could be a hard match and Afghanistan win it tomorrow. Just imagine, if they win then we are unlikely to say Afghanistan is small team anymore, they have done such a good performance and their progress is very high in this World Cup. Have to wait for that match.
At least on paper, South Africa is the stronger side. But I would say that we should not write off Afghanistan. Afghanistan managed to beat Australia and Bangladesh, while South Africa avoided defeat to Nepal and Netherlands by a whisker. I hope that South Africa learnt their lesson from close encounters against the associate nations. If not, then it will give the Afghans another occasions to conduct earth-shattering celebrations, after the semi-finals tomorrow morning at the Brian Lara Stadium in Tarouba. |
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Sad to see Serbia finishing at the bottom of Group C. They never realize their full potential in major tournaments. Have to agree that they were placed in a very tough group along with England and Danmark. But I expected them to win against Slovenia. That didn't happened and they conceded a draw. In the end, Danmark qualified to the next phase without winning even a single match (they have 3 points from 3 matches, as all of their matches were draws). And now it looks like Slovenia may qualify as well, being one of the top-ranked 3rd placed teams. |
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After winning the match against Australia, and New Zealand all the streets of Afghanistan were blocked and all the people of Afghanistan celebrated it. But this time they will face South Africa and I think it will be hard for them to give them a loss but if they lose even then it will be a big achievement for them to reach the semi final stage of the WC. The people of Afghanistan are very happy with their team's performance.
Cricket is a tricky topic in Afghanistan. It is mostly followed by the majority Pashtun population, who comprises around 40% of the Afghan demography. They mostly live in Eastern and Southern parts of Afghanistan. On the other hand, ethnic minorities such as Tadzhiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, Pashayis and Turkmens usually prefer football instead of cricket. Even in the national team, almost all of the players are Pashtuns. Still, I hope that the celebrations are being held all across Afghanistan and not just in Southern and Eastern parts. |
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This is not the first time that I am hearing about such stories. The biggest issue with such cases is that the casinos usually refuses to make the payment to the winner's family. They make some flimsy excuse and then withhold the winnings. In many cases, the family of the winner need to approach the court to get the money back. Anyway, since this incident took place in Singapore, I hope that they will not harass the winner's family. Because the legal system in that country is very fair.
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We just witness one of the unbelieve match between Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The loss of Bangladesh was also a loss for Australia as with this result the Australia were out of the competition, something which many wouldn’t expected when the World Cup was started.
Afghanistan team did not make a big score, only 115 runs, and they needed excellent bowling performance to restrict Bangladesh and how well they managed it. Naveen-ul-Haq, who was the player of the match also, took 4 wickets for 26 runs. He was the inspiration for other bowlers. Rashid Khan also took 4 wickets and he was the captain too. I wonder why he was not selected as the man of the match.
Nevertheless, Afghanistan are in the Semi finals now and now they have an opportunity to move into the finals. They should not miss this chance and make the best out of it.
Afghan players are very popular in IPL. Not just Naveen ul Haq and Rashid Khan, but also other players such as Noor Ahmad Lakanwal, Azmatullah Omarzai, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Mujeeb ur Rahman and Mohammad Nabi are also regular inclusions in various IPL squads. And the IPL experience has definitely helped them in international T20 matches. On the other hand, I would say that one of the reasons why Pakistani players have performed poorly is because of their absence from the IPL. |
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That is called perfect revenge  , where you show your dominance by your work. Also, we should know that Australia come under "Big 3" and they have so-called all the power and authority in cricket and you can understand what it means for them. Despite these off-field tensions, Afghanistan's cricket team has shown remarkable resilience and performance in the field. Their recent victory over Australia resulting in knocking them out of the tournament is a reward for their hard work. Also, this win is particularly useful for them and when you know that Afghanistan is the Semi finals and Australians aren't makes a huge difference. In social media there is a lot of comparison between Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The former got test status back in 1999, while the latter received the same in 2019. Despite the 20 years gap between the two, Bangladesh still underperforms when we compare them to Afghanistan. And to make things worse, Bangladeshi stars such as Mahmudullah and Shakib al Hasan are nearing retirement. On the other hand, Afghanistan has a very young squad led by the 25-year old Rashid Khan. |
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In another three days, Indian women will take on South African women for the test series. The series consist of only one match, scheduled to take place at the MA Chidambaram Stadium. A three match T20I series will take place after the test match. As of now, the momentum is with Indian women. They whitewashed the Proteas during the ODI series (3-0). Smriti Mandhana, Harmanpreet Kaur and Deepti Sharma were good with the bat, while Asha Sobhana and Pooja Vastrakar performd well with the ball during the ODI series.
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Croatia's problems arose in the game when they failed to defeat Albania. I think that with 4 points, access to the playoffs would be guaranteed. By the way, Croatia has not yet officially left the tournament - if in groups C and F the teams that took third place have worse results than Croatia, then Croatia will go further. This looks unlikely, but still such a possibility exists, in fact, in order for Croatia to remain in the tournament, Portugal, Turkey, Denmark and England must win. Moreover, England must win big.
Thanks for correcting me. So Croatia is not yet out. Even then, it will be very difficult for them to qualify for the next phase. I checked the ranking of third placed teams, and Croatia needs to be in top-4 out of a total of 6 teams. But at this point, they are at the 5th position, behind Austria, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia. As you have posted, there is a small chance that Croatia can move up this table, but that will take a lot of generosity from teams like England, Portugal and Danmark. |
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The Australians are out of the competition. Yeah, i agree that they played well, but not so well and Afghanistan just ruined their dreams.
It is rare to see Australia not playing in the finals of the World Cup.
Relations are not really warm between Afghanistan Cricket Board and Cricket Australia. CA cancelled the Afghan tour of Australia, citing the Taliban takeover. And as a response, Rashid Khan and other Afghan cricketers decided to boycott BBL. And both CA and ECB has requested the ICC to suspend ACB, given the lack of a women's national team (which is a mandatory requirement even for the associate members). And now Afghanistan has knocked Australia out of this tournament. |
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Test Cricket is a slow-motion cricket. It's not popular with all types of cricket lovers. Although it's a game where a player proves themself by playing long in the field. Just it one site goodness, but test cricket isn't a game of enjoyment. If test cricket is loved by all cricket lovers then then ODI match and T20 matches will not be invented.
I think very soon, the Cricket Council invented T10 game (Top 10). I hope this game will be more popular among all classes of people. This will be a fighting game called... "Boom" "Boom" "T10"
Nowadays world has become fast moving. People doesn't have time to spend 8 hours a day continuously for 5 days, and that too for a match where there is guarantee that there will be a definite outcome. Still there are a lot of middle aged and elderly people who continue to follow test cricket. But from what I have seen among my friend circle and among my relatives, hardly anyone in the younger age groups follow longer versions of cricket. Forget about test cricket, even ODI cricket is not popular among them. |
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The big news from USA is that Major League Cricket (MLC) is planning to expand. Right now, the competition consists of a total of 6 franchises - Los Angeles Knight Riders, MI New York, San Francisco Unicorns, Seattle Orcas, Texas Super Kings and Washington Freedom. The plan is to add two more teams by 2025 - most probably from Chicago and Atlanta. And then two more teams are supposed to be added by 2027. This would mean that the 2025 season would consist of 35 matches (compared to 19 in 2024).
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The most important part here is that Nigeria is legalizing gambling. Taxation is secondary. And I would say that they are moving in the right direction. There are social vices such as prostitution, porn and gambling, which can't be controlled by government action. These activities have been around for thousands of years in human society and if governments think that they can ban them in a day or two by brining in a few bills, then they are completely wrong. I hope that India will follow this step and legalize gambling here as well.
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South Africa played good cricket and not only won the game but also an unbeatable team in this World Cup like India. Hosts are out from the World Cup now everyone is waiting and watching who is coming from another group and played a Semi-final with SA.
South Africa will play against Afghanistan in the semi-finals, but I would warn them not to take the Afghans lightly. Australia learnt it the hard way. The match will take place at Brian Lara Stadium in Trinidad, and we can expect the pitch to be slightly more supportive towards batting when compared to the other venues so far in this tournament. BTW, the big clash is going to be the second semi-final between India and England. India will be the overwhelming favorites, as England really struggled to qualify in group stage. |
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Sad to see Croatia crashing out of this tournament. They are a small nation (unlike the case with other European giants such as Germany, England or France), but always performed on par with the top teams in Europe. Their squad is ageing, and that maybe one of the reasons for the poor performance this time. Apart from Marco Pašalić and Luka Sučić, they don't have any young forwards in less than 25 age group. Andrej Kramarić is 33, while Luka Modrić will soon be 39.
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The fact that Australia couldn't qualify for the semi-finals is quite surprising. Although they start the the major ICC tournaments in a dull manner, they always make up for that in the later stages. But this time they couldn't recover from the defeat that they suffered against Afghanistan. They needed to win against India, but then their bowlers leaked tons of runs and in the end the target was outside their range. Anyway, congratulations to Afghanistan. Hard work always pays off in the end.
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Australia's defeat to Afghanistan changed all the equations. Australia has a better run rate compared to Afghanistan, and that would mean that they should enter the semi-finals in case they defeat India at the Daren Sammy National Cricket Stadium. But then defeating in-form India is going to be quite tough for Australia. Also, toss is going to be quite important. The team winning the toss would chose to field in all probability. From Group 2, semi-finalists are confirmed - South Africa and England.
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Here is the more pathetic. If there was a very qualified candidate who will run as a third candidate, I am quite very much so certain that much of the people will vote for Trump or Biden and leave less than 10% of votes to the qualified candidate hehehehe. Who is the most pathetic on this setting? It is certainly the voters. It will be much better to stay home and watch cartoons on election day.
Since the US is having a two-party system, it doesn't make any sense to vote for a third party candidate. To be more specific, there is always an option to vote for a number of candidates outside the two mainstream parties in every single POTUS elections. There are candidates from the Libertarian Party, Green Party, Alliance Party, Constitution Party, American Solidarity Party and dozens of other minor parties taking part in these elections. But a vote for any of them would be waste, as they have zero chance of winning the elections. |
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Trump and Biden are two pathetic presidential candidates. Why did people have to choose these two politicians. This is a very bad situation. They may be the worst candidates in the history of America. When I look at the polls, Trump is ahead and the betting odds support the polls.
Biden is vulnerable with voters because of his health problems and illegal immigration has increased too much. Trump's populist rhetoric is working with the electorate and if I were to bet on the US elections, Trump would be my choice. Trump voters are more consolidated and Biden voters are divided. But outside of betting, neither candidate is right for America. Finally, the odds offered by bookmakers for the presidential race are satisfactory.
LOL.. how can you say that Trump voters are united and Biden voters are divided? First of all, there are no Trump and Biden voters. Unlike the case with 2016 and 2020 POTUS elections, the focus has shifted to party policies. Individual reputation is no more important. Republicans are solidly behind Trump (since he has secured the nomination) and Biden has the rock-hard support of the left-wing voters. This time, the election will be fought over policies such as immigration, inflation, economy and war on Ukraine. That means that voting intentions will be based on the party affiliation. |
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I am excited for 3rd ODI between West Indies Women team and Sri Lanka Women team. Sri Lanka has already won the series by winning first two matches and they are playing aggressively in this series. I hope they will continue their dominance and sweep series 3-0 especially with the home advantage. However I don't count out the West Indies Women team just yet. They could still pull off surprise win and I also wouldn't underestimate their capabilities. Let's see how match unfolds it could be a thrilling match if West Indies Women team will perform well today.
Sri Lanka has started well. Vishmi Gunaratne and Chamari Athapaththu have taken Lankan women to 91/0 after 19 overs. But then remember that the track at Mahinda Rajapaksa International Cricket Stadium is quite supportive of batting. In order to post a challenging target, the Lankan women need to get to at least 280-300. This is the third and final ODI, and Sri Lanka has already won the series with comprehensive victories in the first two matches. West Indian women will be looking for a morale booster ahead of the T20I series between the two sides. |
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I am a bit worried that Croatia may not be able to go past group stage this time. They are being placed in an extremely tough group, along with Spain, Italy and Albania. And at this point they have just 1 point from 2 matches. Their only remaining match is against Italy on 24th June, but I don't think that they will be able to secure required number of points. A few hours back, Italy went down against Spain, but I am not sure whether Croatia stands any chance against them. |
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