While other teams take a long time to become a good team after gaining status in ODIs and other formats, Afghanistan have been able to improve very quickly. Afghanistan will probably achieve the highest in this World Cup tournament compared to other World Cups. Afghanistan may not be able to play the semi-finals but it will cause big teams to drop out of the tournament. Afghanistan have two matches ahead where I will see Afghanistan as favourites. Afghanistan will go ahead with wins against Sri Lanka and Netherlands. If they can win against the Netherlands and Afghanistan, they will make it four matches and if they crash in either of the next two matches, Afghanistan will have a chance of making the semi-finals. In the last few years, Afghanistan has made great progress in the Test T20 and ODI 3 formats.
Even if they win against Sri Lanka and Netherlands, it will be difficult for Afghanistan to qualify for the semi-finals. As per my calculation, in order to enter semi-finals each team need to win at least 6 matches. Afghanistan has so far played 5 matches and they have won only 2. That means that they need to win all of their remaining 4 matches, including the next one (vs Sri Lanka). I am not sure whether it will be possible to enter semi-finals with 5 wins. But if there are a few upsets in the coming matches, then even that maybe possible. |
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Kennedy's entry as an independent has complicated things. Recent polls have shown him with support ranging from 9 to 22 points. The most important thing is that Biden is leading in almost all the polls where Kennedy is also there. Only one poll from Harvard-Harris has shown Trump in the lead. The most recent poll from USA Today/Suffolk has Trump and Biden in tie, when Kennedy and West are also given as option. When only Kennedy is there, then Biden is having a clear lead. All that said, I am not sure whether these trends are going to hold.
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Exactly. There were a decent start and when they were playing I was thinking that they can pull the runs above 300 but unfortunately they didn't remain on pitch. Noor Ahmad took 3 wickets and these 3 wickets were the strong pillar for Pakistan team. He collected Abdullah Shafique Babar Azam and Muhammad Rizwan's wickets and they are the main players of Pakistan's team.
Afghanistan won with just 6 balls to spare. This one was the closest match in the tournament so far. If Pakistan had made another 10-15 runs, then it would have been really tight. But then, Pakistan has only themselves to blame. There is still a chance that they could qualify for the semi-finals. But in order to do that they need to win almost all of the remaining matches. I guess it is the absence of Naseem Shah that is creating problem for Pakistan. The other three pacers (Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf and Hasan Ali) are not able to trouble the opposition batsmen. |
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Afghanistan's celebration shows how important this win is to them in the World Cup. Afghanistan played a total of 17 matches against Pakistan in World Cup excluding yesterday's match where only two matches were won by Afghanistan and remaining 15 matches were won by Pakistan. Afghanistan's win over Pakistan by 8 wickets in yesterday's match has changed the equation a bit now that they have won three of their last 18 matches.
From the players to the coaching staff, everyone in Afghanistan was very excited about the win. By defeating Afghanistan in this match, Pakistan may have pushed Pakistan far away from their semi-final dreams. It will be very difficult for Pakistan to make a comeback in the semi-finals from the position they are in now.
These stats need to be taken with a pinch of salt. Aghanistan received their test status only in 2019, and therefore most of the matches were played when they were still an associate. Now their funding is comparable with that of Pakistan, but earlier that was not the case. As you mentioned, Afghanistan have won only 2 out of 17 matches against Pakistan, but this trend will not stand in the future. Despite difficulties arising as a result of the Taliban takeover, at present Afghanistan is one of those teams making most rapid improvement in international cricket. |
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I agree with you. Batting first, Pakistan set a target of 283 runs. And that was enough to win. But opponent Afghanistan batted well today. Every batsman in the top order played very well. We can blame the Pakistan bowlers, but when the opposition batsmen are batting very responsibly, it becomes much more difficult for the bowlers to pick up wickets.
Pakistan squad does not have good spin bowlers, this is their weakness. Apart from Afridi, other pace bowlers are not doing very well. And crucially Pakistan's fielding was poor. I would say this is one of the reasons for their defeat. We have seen Pakistan's fielding bad against Australia as well. This team really needs to improve their fielding. They have to be more diligent.
LOL.. I don't think that 282 is a decent total at Chepauk. Abdullah Shafique and Babar Azam gave Pakistan a decent start. But the middle order batsmen could not use that as a launching pad and wasted a lot of balls during the depth overs. Saud Shakeel and Shadab Khan failed to accelerate and only Iftikhar Ahmed towards the end boosted the run rate with a few boundaries. Even then, a total of above 300 would have been decent. For Afghanistan Noor Ahmad was the pick of the bowlers, and he picked up 3 crucial wickets and made sure that Pakistan doesn't manage to cross 300. |
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Two of the favorites are now almost out of the world cup - England and Pakistan. For England, the only win came against Bangladesh and their misery is not going to end anytime soon. Pakistan has so far won 2 out of the 5 matches they have played, but one of those wins came against the Netherlands. And the other win came against a weak Sri Lanka. Their next match is against South Africa. BTW, Hotstar is making good revenue from the live streams. Yesterday for the Pakistan vs Afghanistan match, the peak viewership was 20 million.
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In cricket, if you have a good batting line, it is important to have good bowling to support that batting line.Nepal team has been unbeaten in all their matches so far.Nepal batting start was also very disappointing .Chasing 165 runs, three players of the Nepal team were out for just 11 runs, but then Aasif Sheikh and Rohit Kumar put on a brilliant 99-run partnership.
The outstanding performance of these two players played an important role in Nepal victory. Taking the team out of pressure and winning the match is definitely a sign of strong batting. The performance of the Nepali team shows that the Nepali team will continue to be unbeaten and will beat the UAE team easily. Nepal has won all of their matches and they have qualified for the finals. The only question is regarding their opponents. Tomorrow we have a match between Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates. If UAE wins it, then they will go to the final. Hong Kong needs a big win, as they lost the first match against UAE and their run-rate is quite low. Anyway, this series was the perfect warmup that Nepal needed before the Asia T20 World Cup qualifiers. For Nepal, qualifying for the 2024 world cup is very crucial, as it will provide them with additional funding. |
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Today is the 5th match of Nepal Tri-series UAE vs Nepal. So far Nepal has played 3 matches and won all 3 matches. Nepal is number 1 in the points table with 6 points after winning 3 matches. On the other hand, United Arab Emirates played 2 matches, won one match and lost one match. United Arab Emirates is number 2 in the points table with 2 points. Today's match is very important for UAE. If the UAE win today's match, they can play the final directly. If they lose today's match, they have one more match against Hong Kong. Even if they don't win today's match, UAE can easily win against Hong Kong. If I have to predict today's match then I will definitely support Nepal. The chances of Nepal winning today's match are very high. Nepal and United Arab Emirates will participate in the final match.
Always good to see teams with native players winning matches instead of those with imported players from India and Pakistan. This matters a lot for Nepal, as they receive less amount of funds when compared to the other two teams from the ICC. The Asia qualifiers for the ICC T20 World Cup of 2024 will start next week and in case Nepal can qualify for that tournament, then they can expect a considerable rise in their fund allocation. But it is not going to be easy. A total of 10 teams are taking part, and only the top two teams are going to qualify. |
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Yesterday's match was perhaps the most competitive one that we had in the tournament so far. The top two teams battled it out, and in the end the New Zealand target was too small to give them a win. Another 10-15 runs on board would have definitely made the difference. But then the Kiwis can blame only themselves. They were 205/3 after 37 overs. In the next 13 overs, they could only score another 68 runs. At this point, they had several big hitters with them, including Glenn Phillips, Mark Chapman and Daryl Mitchell.
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LOL.. Netherlands in very poor condition in the very next match after their upset win against South Africa. They were 91/6 after Scott Edwards got out. Now Sybrand Engelbrecht and Logan van Beek have helped them to reach 130/6. The first target for the Dutch would be to reach a total of at least 200. I am not expecting much from them in this match, as some of the Sri Lankan batsmen are in great form and also due to the fact that the pitch at Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow seems to be very batsmen friendly.
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Today is the third match of the Nepal Tri-Nation tournament. Today is the match of two small teams which are Hong Kong and Nepal. The most of the people are Muslims from the team of Hong Kong and maybe the Muslim players are from Pakistan or Indonesia because many Pakistani and Indonesian people live in Hong Kong.
Anyway, let’s start to talk about the captains of both teams. Nizakat Khan is the captain of Hong Kong, and Rohit Paudel is the captain of Nepal. If we check which captain is the best so both are good because Nizakat Khan has more experience than Rohit Paudel because Rohit Paudel's age is 21 and he plays almost well and Nizakat Khan age is 31 and they are just ok.
Most of Hong Kong players are not the citizens of Hong Kong. The vast majority are Pakistani citizens and a few are from India. As far as I know, none of the Hong Kong players have citizenship of that country. On the other hand, Nepal is entirely made of citizens. There is not a single foreigner in their squad. But despite all this, they have performed well recently. At this point, I am watching the Nepal vs Hong Kong T20 match in Fancode. They have made 200/5 after 19 overs, with Kushal Malla out there with 81 from 37 balls. Nepal has scored a massive 95 runs from the last 5 overs. |
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^^^ Is it even allowed to take a political stance in the ICC tournaments? And what has the war between Israel and Palestine has to do with cricket? If Pakistan is supporting Hamas, then there may be other countries who support Israel. For example, England is one of the participating nations and they have sent military aid to Israel. What if they conduct a prayer meet at the ground and then tweet in support of Israel? My advice is that let's keep politics away from cricket. If different teams and players start fighting over politics, then in the end sports is going to suffer.
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OK... you mentioned Netherlands in your post. That's why I got confused. But Nepal's performance was quite disappointing. I can agree with that. I expected them to qualify for the Super-6 at least, but that didn't happened and their sole win came against the United States. Anyway, after this tournament, they put up a good performance against India in Asia Cup (although it was after suffering heavy defeat against Pakistan). Anyway, I have high hopes for this team. They are a very young squad and they will improve from here.
By the way tomorrow again Nepal and Hong Kong will play the third match of Nepal Tri-Nation T20I Series. And again I'm sure that Nepal will win. But these are small teams as you mentioned in the previous reply. Nepal deserves to play with top teams. Than they will be able to get experience and play much better. Nepal hasn't received much support from the ICC over the years. Now they are able to compete against the top teams, because in recent years some of the local businessmen have offered financial help towards them. Even then, until a few years ago they used to struggle against teams such as United Arab Emirates and Oman, which used to be comprised of first-class players from different test nations. Nowadays they are having an upper hand though. And this is very much evident in the ongoing tri-series. |
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Once again Pakistan batters failed to show aggression. Both Imam and Abdullah gave a good start but they both scored with run a ball. Imam ul Haq was opener yet he failed to produce any 6 in his whole innings. It seems that players like Imam, Rizwan and Babar are playing to improve there stats and they don't have any interest in team victory. Pakistan with this defeat now slipped to number 5th spot while Aussies are now at 4th spot.
I don't understand why everyone is blaming the batsmen, when Pakistan lost the match as a result of poor bowling. Abdullah Shafique and Imam-ul-Haq did well IMO. They scored at a run-a-ball, and added 134 runs for the first wicket partnership. It was the middle order that couldn't keep the momentum going. Babar Azam failed yet again, while Mohammad Rizwan and Saud Shakeel couldn't convert their good starts to 50s. In the end, Pakistan had plenty of overs remaining, but ran out of batsmen. They were bowled out with 4.3 overs remaining in the innings. |
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368 is defiantly not an easy target to chase and that too against Aussies bowling lineup. The dilemma with Pakistan batting is that most of top order players are playing with too much defense. They are not scoring runs with requirement of the game. Only Abdullah Shafique was able to hit two 6 among top 4 batsmen. Imam and Rizwan as usual scored runs with run a ball and that is not helping Pakistan.
Well.. let's not blame the Pakistani batsmen. A target of 368 would have been quite formidable even against weak teams such as Sri Lanka. And here we have Australia, who has world class bowlers. It was a near-impossible task to start with. But then credit goes to the Pakistani batsmen for giving a tough fight. They kept the losing margin to two digits. And this is going to matter, when the semi-final slots will be decided on the basis of net run rate. And as of now, both Australia and Pakistan are having equal points. |
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Australia at 360/7. At one point it looked as if they will make somewhere around 400. But now it will be surprising even if they can get to 370. Australian wickets fell like a pack of cards, with Haris Rauf making a strong comeback. His initial spell was 4-0-69-0. And his second spell went for 4-0-14-3 (and that too while bowling at depth overs). This is perhaps the most extreme comeback from a bowler that I have witnessed in world cup matches. Australia has reasons to be disappointed, but they need to win this match and get a good NRR boost out of it.
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✂✂✂✂
But I think Pakistan have the ability to bat against big targets and win.
Maybe.. but against weak teams like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Do you really believe that they are capable of chasing down a near-400 total against quality bowlers such as Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood? And now Adam Zampa is also in great form. BTW, the absence of a quality spinner has really hurt Pakistan in this match. Usama Mir's figures read 9-0-82-1, while Mohammad Nawaz returned 7-0-43-0. The most expensive bowler is Haris Rauf BTW. His numbers are 6-0-72-2. But then he picked up two important wickets (that of David Warner and Josh Inglis). |
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Superb comeback of Australia team in today match. Both batters David Warner and Mitchell Marsh are playing very admirable performance and both makes a tremendous dual batting partnership against Pakistan. Both batters of Australia David Warner and Mitchell Marsh achieve their brilliant century. At this time, Australia make 237 scores by playing 32 overs without lost any wicket at this moment. Now Pakistan is in bad situation not single bowler could take their wicket today. Pakistan chance in this match for winning has been reduced. Let's see how many scores target Australian team will give to Pakistan team at the end of their batting inning. I had posted this multiple times. Australia always perform well during ICC tournaments. If they can get a big win today, then it will really boost their NRR. And trust me, the last 1-2 slots for semi-finals this time are going to get decided solely on the basis of run-rate. The next match should be relatively easy for Australia, as they are scheduled to play against Netherlands. But after that they need to win against New Zealand, as the latter is in exceptional form. BTW, Australia has lost their 5th wicket now. 400 may not be possible. |
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Australia are 4-down now. David Warner finally got out, to the bowling of Haris Rauf. He made a super-human 163 from 124 balls, that included 9 sixes. Josh Inglis and Marcus Stoinis at the crease now, and they are known for power-hitting. Australia at 330/4 after 43 overs. 10 runs per over should get them past 400. Even this total would not be the highest in the tournament so far. South Africa made 428 against Sri Lanka a few days back. But it should be more than enough to get 2 points and a good NRR boost from this match.
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I would not be worried about Neymar and him missing games at the World Cup 2026. First of all it is three years from now and I am not sure whether by then he is anyway sitting in a wheelchair due to his glass bones and also, in three years from now Neymar who is so susceptible to injuries will be 34 years old and his importance for the Brazilian squad has been declining for a while now. I doubt that Ancelotti now thinks it would be a nightmare if Neymar can't play at the tournament. In Qatar he played 3 games and only 1 of those games he stayed on the pitch full-time. He missed some games with an injury and in other games he was substituted. Not sure whether I can agree with your statement. Neymar got injured during the 2022 FIFA World Cup as well. And that was one of the reasons why their campaign ended at quarter-finals stage. Neymar took part in that match against Croatia, but he was not 100% fit. Ancelotti may think that Neymar is not an integral part of the Brazilian squad. But IMO, Brazil struggles against quality sides when he is not present. This is not the Brazil team that we all know from the 1990s or 2000s. Apart from Neymar, other players doesn't have the capability to win matches on their own. |
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