Nepal is a cricket crazy nation. Cricket is more popular than any other sport in that country. But in terms of funding, Nepal receives far less funds when compared to mercenary teams like Oman or the UAE, because their ranking is too low in the ICC table. Teams like Oman achieve good ranking with the help of foreign players, and in turn they use this ranking to get access to more funding. Teams like Nepal and Kenya on the other hand depend on native players, and since their ranking is low, they get a decreasing share of the ICC revenues with each passing year.

So far, I am disappointed with the performance of Ravindra Jadeja as the captain of CSK. He is no match for MS Dhoni. They had a good outing yesterday, against one of the weaker teams. But their weak link seems to be the bowling. Payers like Mukesh Choudhary are in no position to fill the vacuum left by Deepak Chahar (the latest update is that Chahar has been ruled out for this season, due to back injury). CSK spent a total of ₹140 million on Chahar and his absence will have a huge impact upon them.

We no longer have bowlers like Shoaib Akhtar or Brett Lee in international cricket. Such bowlers are not suitable for the T20 format, and for the last one decade or so, I haven't seen anyone bowling at average speeds of ~95mph, as Akhar and Lee used to do. One issue is the strict conditions put forward by the ICC to impose penalty on slow over rates. Bowlers like Akhtar takes a lot more time to finish their spell compared to medium pacers, and with that comes a greater risk of the team getting punished for slow over rates.

It's fact in subcontinent Pakistan is known as best country for pace bowlers, and they have some best bowlers in cricket history but sadly due to some inner issues they lost nearly two decades which hurt badly to this as well but now as they are all settled things are moving in positive way with few new generation players are coming and having their mark in fast bowling like Shaheen Afridi, Haris Rauf, Hassan Ali and Mohammad Abbas these all are quality bowlers with their own abilities.

But good thing happened in India and their long term investment with collaboration of MRF now giving them some good and quality pace bowlers which are helping them for having very good ranks in all formats and now IPL is also working very good for finding new talent which is going to be amazing for India in future and cricket world.

I think people are right to criticise Bangladesh for this poor performance, because they gave away 29 wickets to the African spinners and there’s no justification for the way they played in the second innings. Also Bangladesh can learn a lot from this defeat and work on improving their game, because I feel with some more efforts they can improve their overall game and provide tough challenge to their opponents.

Just heard about the decision from ICC to grant direct entry to the United States cricket team for the 2024 T20 World Cup. What sort of sham is this? The US cricket team doesn't have any native players and all of them are expats. On top of that, they lost out to more qualified teams when they played in the 2021 qualifier tournament. Why the ICC is hell bent on promoting these undeserving teams, when more deserving teams like Nepal and Namibia are being robbed of the opportunities. Now matter how hard they try, the Americans are not going to take cricket seriously as long as there are no natives in the team.

This rotten system was brought in by the Sharad Pawar-Srinivasan mafia, when they were in control of the ICC/BCCI. The intention was to please the bosses of Emirates cricket board. But in turn, this decision destroyed the game in some of the more promising countries such as Kenya, Nepal and China, which relied mostly on native players. To add insult to injury, the ICC heavily reduced funding to associate nations when these two were in power and teams with native players suffered the most.

I really don't think that this is a problem because they are obviously the citizens of that country. It would be a problem to me if it was otherwise. But right now I don't see any problem.

And, if ICC makes any rules to force the countries to make their team with native players, I think it will be a maximum of one year, and after that those teams will not exist in the cricketing world. Already there are very few teams in cricket.

Well.. I agree. In most of the Asian countries, the bowling action for domestic players is not under close scrutiny. Only if they play in franchise T20 cricket or international matches, the suspect bowling action is reported. Nowadays the technology has progressed a lot, and many of the domestic matches are being broadcasted or streamed live. Now this increases the chance of suspect action getting noticed by the match officials. Now coming to Hasnain, chances are low that he will be able to perform at his previous level. But let's be hopeful.

I believe that all three are over-rated players (Hard dick, Krunal and Boult). Hard dick is in bad form for the past many years. Once in a while he gives a decent outing and all the commentators and sports experts go ballistic over it. I read an article from Harsha Bhogle a few days back, which claimed that no one can replace the position of Hard dick in the Indian team. I find this laughable. One good performance doesn't make up for poor performances in the last 50 matches. Talented players such as Venkatesh Iyer are being kept out of the team in order to accommodate Hard dick. Hard dick's only contribution to the Indian team is his woke activism, and he was the one who coerced the team members into useless drama such as kneeling for BLM.

LOL.. yesterday I posted that Keshav Maharaj is in terrific form with the bat. And he top-scored for South Africa in the first innings of the Gqeberha test, by making 84 (batting at no. . South Africa were 300/6 at one point, but they finished at 453. The last four batsmen added more than a hundred and fifty runs between them. And that means Bangladesh require 254 to avoid follow on. Looks difficult, given the fact that they need another 115 runs with just 5 wickets in hand. And surprisingly, Wiaan Mulder has taken three of the wickets that has gone down so far.

Rahul Tewatia is a hero for the Gujarat Titans. Who could have thought that he would hit 2 sixes in the last two balls to tilt the game results in the favor of GT. I am sure punjab kings would be 100% sure of a win before these last 2 balls were bowled.

GT remains unbeaten after winning all three matches played till now.

Given Bangladesh's horrific batting performance in the first test, I don't have much hope for them in the Gqeberha test. In all probability, South Africa will manage a total of 350-400 in the first innings and it is going to be hard for Bangladesh to avoid the follow on. Right now, two new batsmen are at the crease (Kyle Verreynne and Wiaan Mulder). The South African lower order batsmen such as Keshav Maharaj are also in terrific form recently. It is going to be a tough task for the Bangladesh bowlers (especially the pacers).

What happened to Hasnain is really unfortunate. He had a few good outings for Sydney Thunder in the BBL, before being reported for suspicious bowling action by the umpires. Now he is undergoing rehabilitation and need to change his bowling style. The big challenge is to ensure that his pace and venom remains the same even after changing the bowling action. And it can be very tough. In the past I have seen only a few bowlers managing to do it without any issues. Just hoping that the PCB is offering enough support to Hasnain.

I rechecked the story, in case i missed something and now can confirm that, they were denied the World Cup entry (and indeed tournament got cancelled due to covid) because they had no ODI status. According to the reports it was harsh decision and they were robbed of a maiden appearance of an ODI world cup.

https://www.cricket.com.au/news/odi-world-cup-qualifier-cancelled-covid-omicron-thailand-bangladesh-ireland-sri-lanka/2021-11-28

"With the Super Sixes stage of the tournament unable to be played (or rescheduled), the three highest-ranked teams in the ICC's ODI rankings at the cut-off date of September 30 progressed to the main event under the tournament's playing conditions.

Thailand do not have ODI status and therefore do not have an ODI ranking.

The ICC announced in April the women’s teams of all Full Member nations would be awarded ODI (and Test) status, but for Thailand, whose progress in the women’s game has far outstripped that of its men’s side, the only route to ODI status would have been through qualification for the Championship."

Pakistan do have some great young fast bowlers. Examples are Shaheen Shah Afridi, Naseem Shah and Muhammad Hasnain. Babar Azam is already being considered as one of the legends in international cricket. The same may happen with some of the younger bowlers, but it takes time. I don't know which one among the group will establish themselves in the future, but in the 90s, bowlers like Waqar Younis and Aaqib Javed started like them only. All that said, Pakistan first need to prepare quality tracks that offer some support for these bowlers.

South Africa lost their second wicket by 133 runs. Dean Elgar returned to the dressing room with 60 runs. South Africa collected 158 runs and lost only two wickets. The South African players are batting very responsibly. Besides, the bowling of Bangladeshi bowlers does not look good. I do not see any experienced bowler on the team. And if they can't take a few more wickets, South Africa will easily collect more than 300 runs at the end of the first day.

I won’t say that Pakistan is among the top teams just yet, because Pakistan had the home advantage, plus many of these Australian player’s hadn’t toured Pakistan before so I’ll only consider them a top team when they beat big teams while playing away from home. Lastly I’ll give them the credit for their overall performances, because they have definitely improved and I hope that their good form continues in future tournaments too.