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Crazy news regarding the 2030 World Cup. FIFA will be providing direct entry to 6 teams (Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay). If you thought that giving direct entry to 3 teams in 2026 is unfair, then they have stepped up one level for the 2030 edition. This is just plain crazy. What is the point in having qualifier tournament, if there are so many teams with direct entry? What about 2034? Are they going to give direct qualification to 20 teams? I am not sure what FIFA is trying to achieve with all this BS.
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Nobody was expecting such hammering of English bowlers today. Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra had a record 2nd innings partnership of unbeaten 273. Before World Cup odds were not very much in favour of New Zealand but after today's stunning performance its clear that New Zealand are well prepared for this world cup. Ravindra with this century has established himself now as recognised batsmen also.
Just imagine what would have happened, if all these South African born players (Devon Conway, Glenn Phillips, Marnus Labuschagne, Tom Curran, Jason Roy, Colin Munro, Michael Neser.etc) played for the country of their birth instead. Anyway, the loss of one team is the gain for other. Even in today's match, two of these players had a very big contribution to New Zealand's win (Conway and Phillips). BTW, England also had one player of South African origin. Although Dawid Malan was born in England, his parents are South African. And he did most of his education in South Africa. |
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Tomorrow at 6:30am IST, we will have the first semi-final between India and Bangladesh at the Asian Games Men's Cricket Competition. Indians would be satisfied with nothing less than a gold medal (the Indian women already won gold in their category). India played just one match till now, and that was the quarter-final clash against Nepal. It was a close match, in which some of their weaknesses were exposed. But then, Bangladesh was no better against Malaysia during their quarter-final match. The second semi-final (Afghanistan vs Pakistan) will start by 11:30am IST.
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Feels so happy about the comprehensive win by New Zealand. This is more like payback for what happened during the final of 2019 ODI Cricket World Cup. Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra treated the England bowlers like they are some club players. The much hyped Mark Wood returned figures of 5-0-55-0. This is the same bowler who had an excellent stint with the IPL just a few months back. Also, credit needs to be given for the New Zealand bowlers. They never allowed the England batsmen to recover. Matt Henry, Mitchell Santner and Glenn Phillips were exceptional today.
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At this time cricket posts are at their peak because of the World Cup. The warm matches were finished and now the actual matches of the World Cup have been started. The New Zealand bowling is going very well, and I hope it will go. On the other hand, England's batting is also very good. Kane Williamson didn't play today's match. This thing hurt New Zealand the most.  I am not sure whether they can perform well without Kane Williamson. England is inching towards a good total, thanks to the 5th wicket partnership between Jos Buttler and Joe Root. The New Zealand captain is sticking with James Neesham, rather than using wicket-taking bowlers such as Mitchell Santner or Matt Henry. And I don't understand why Rachin Ravindra was picked ahead of Ish Sodhi. The latter was a much better bowling option, and Rachin got the nod probably because he is a better batsman. |
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Bangladesh luckily won yesterday's match and qualified for the semi-finals after beating Malaysia from the quarter-finals. Moreover, Malaysian batsmen's batting performance was not so good due to which they lost the match and Bangladesh won by two runs. In the Asian Games Men's T20 match, the next match will be Bangladesh vs India semi-final, the winner of this match will go to the final. On the other hand these two teams Pakistan and Afghanistan from the quarter finals to the semi finals are sure to be a great game between the two teams to reach the finals. And as far as possible, I think, in these matches, the Indian team will probably reach the final in the match between Bangladesh and India. On the other hand, in the Afghanistan vs Pakistan match, Pakistan has most of the chances to reach the final.
Bangladesh made a sub-par total, but still they managed to recover from the early setbacks. At one point, they were 3/3 after Pavandeep Singh and Vijay Unni ripped through the top-order. Still, thanks to Saif Hassan, Afif Hossain and Shahadat Hossain they recovered to 116/5. Towards the end, Malaysian bowlers lost their steam and conceded too many runs. Malaysia also had a poor start, with Ripon Mondol and Afif Hossain taking quick wickets. Virandeep Singh gave them some hope, but in the end he couldn't finish the game. |
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England was off to an excellent start, but then New Zealand came back to the game strongly with 4 quick wickets. England were 64/1, but now they are struggling at 125/4. And we know how the pitch at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad behaves. Anything less than 300 is not going to be enough for the team that is batting first. Joe Root and Jos Buttler are at the crease right now, and they are trying to rebuild the innings. If they can get Poms to 200 by the 35th over without losing any further wickets, then there is a good chance that England may end up with a good total.
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LOL.. when Elon took over Twitter and fired more than 90% of the staff, there were a lot of posts in social media claiming that Twitter is going to collapse and they need the "experienced" employees to make sure that everything is in order. Many months have passed and I haven't noticed any major change in my user experience with Twitter. All the doomsday predictions seems to have failed! I just hope that my own employer doesn't follow the example set by Elon and fire majority of the workforce. BTW, Google and Facebook also took steps to reduce workforce strength in recent months.
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The semi-final lineup for the Asian Games men's cricket tournament is now confirmed.
1st Semi-final: India vs Bangladesh, on 6th October at the Zhejiang University of Technology Cricket Field
2nd Semi-final: Pakistan vs Afghanistan, on 6th October at the same venue
Pakistan will be relieved, as they don't have to face Sri Lanka. On the other hand, India will also be looking for a cakewalk, as Bangladesh barely won the quarter-final match against Malaysia.
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Odds look quite strange for the Al Ahli vs Al Ittihad match. I would have expected much closer odds than what they have right now (heavily biased in favor of Al Ittihad). And this is strange, given that Karim Benzema is out injured and he is unlikely to take part in this match. He has missed out on previous three matches, and this will be the 4th match in a row that he is not playing. Also, from what I heard the Al Ittihad fans are also frustrated with Benzema. So far he has scored just 3 goals and 2 assists in the Saudi Professional League.
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The first match of the world cup will get underway in around 1 hour from now, and it will be played between the defending champions (England) and the runners-up (New Zealand). I am one of those guys who want New Zealand to win, purely because England stole the world cup back in 2019. The memories are still fresh and today it is going to be payback time for Ben Stokes and company. And fortunately this match is taking place in Ahmedabad. No rains are predicted for the next 7 days, so we don't need to worry about rain interruptions.
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The poll aggregate from Realclearpolitics clearly shows that Donald Trump is well ahead of Joe Biden at this point: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2024/president/us/general-election-trump-vs-biden-7383.htmlAnd more importantly, some of the polls are now showing Trump ahead of Biden in blue-leaning states such as Pennsylvania. The migrant situation at Southern border seems to be costing the Democrats a lot of votes. But at the same time, the Republican infighting has given them some breathing space. Kevin McCarthy was kicked out as the House speaker yesterday, and GOP seems to be in complete disarray. |
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It is not going to be a repeat of 2019. New Zealand as of now is a much weakened squad. Even with the addition of Trent Boult, they are not one of the favorites. Regularly losing players to franchise T20 leagues have impacted their performance and the addition of players from South Africa (Devon Conway, Glenn Philips.etc) hasn't yet neutralized this loss. So for today's match, I would rather consider England as the overwhelming favorites. And it is going to be a tough task for New Zealand even to qualify for the semi-finals.
Today world cup start and first match between Defending champions England and Runner up NewZealand. The final match of world cup 19 England won match by super over on boundary counts. NewZealand batting first and posted a good total of 241/8 in 50 over. England are level the score 241/10 in 50 match. The Super over also score are level but England won in boundary counts. Head to head record ODI matches played 95 England won 44 and NewZealand also won 44 matches. NewZealand fast bowler trent boult required 3 wickets to complete his 200 ODI wickets. I think England are favourite to win this opening match. If Southee was there, then I would have said that New Zealand has a chance. But he is out due to injury and apart from Trent Boult none of the other Kiwi bowlers are in good form. Lockie Ferguson in particular has the habit of leaking runs on flat Indian pitches (and he will be playing today). And one more disadvantage with New Zealand is that they don't have any quality spinners with them. Mitchell Santner has tons of experience and Ish Sodhi is talented. But both of them doesn't have the ability to trouble the batsmen. |
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Of course Al-Ittihad still has solid players and the absence of Karim Benzema will not affect Al-Ittihad's performance even though the presence of Karim Benzema makes Al-Ittihad's attack line even stronger.
Al-Ahli is not a very strong opponent for Al-Ittihad as proven by their last 5 matches. Al-Ittihad was able to beat 3 matches while Al-Ahli only won 1 match and draw 1 x. Of course this match will end the same, namely won by Al-Ittihad although with a narrow score.
To chase points and replace Al-hilal in first place, of course Al-Ittihad will try as hard as they can for this match. Al Ittihad's manager (Nuno Espírito Santo) had some issues with Karim Benzema, since he wanted to give more priority to Abderrazak Hamdallah. So he will be more or less happy with the absence of Benzema. Their next match is against one of the toughest opponents (Al Ahli) in the Saudi Professional League. Their last match didn't ended well for them, as they conceded a goal-less draw against Al Feiha. If they had got 3 points from that match, then they would have retained their position as the top team in points table. |
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Malaysia team played well but loss match by 2 runs that heartbreak for fans. They needed 6 runs off 11 balls against Bangladesh in the quarter final match, but they lost the match by just two runs to miss a place in the semi-final. Virandeep Singh is out by 52 in 39 balls and Syed Aziz is out by scoring 20 runs. Ripon Mondol bowling was outclassed took 3 wickets for Bangladesh. I think first time Malaysia are so close to beat an ICC full member team Bangladesh, got defeated by just 2 runs, Malaysia bright future ahead they will be strong team in future
Anyway, Malaysia need to learn from these mistakes. They have the added advantage compared to other teams, as the government is quite supportive. Also, as a member of the ACC they are also eligible for additional funds. I hope that the ACC will also take notice of good performance by teams like Nepal and Malaysia. It will be a good idea to expand the Asia Cup competition to 8 teams instead of the current 6. But then, I don't want fake teams like Oman and United Arab Emirates to gain entry at the cost of genuine teams with native players. |
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Both England and New Zealand will be missing a few key players from the 2019 clash. Jofra Archer played a major role in boosting England's bowling, but he is out of action for some time now. The pace attack is likely to be lead by Mark Wood and Chris Woakes, with Sam Curran and Reece Topley backing him up. New Zealand pace attack is a shadow of its former self, and now Tim Southee has been ruled out as a result of injury. Trent Boult is still there, and he will be backed up by Matt Henry and Lockie Ferguson.
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It was a real thriller match for the Bangladesh team and for the followers of Bangladesh team. Finally a surprise win to reach the semifinals of the Asian Games cricket. All the winning credit goes to Afif Hossain who had the best bowling figures of the match, 4-11-3 with an economy of 2.75 rpo. Particularly Afif Hossain's final over was the match turner. Malaysia need just 5 runs out of the last over, and Virandeep Singh the leading scorer for Malaysia on the strike. First three balls were dot and in the fourth ball took the wicket of Virandeep Singh. Two singles in the next two balls and it was a 2 runs win for Bangladesh. Even in batting Afif Hossain had contributed with 23 runs facing 14 balls.
How hard was it to score 5 runs from 6 balls, with 4 wickets remaining? And Virandeep Singh, who had made 52 from 35 balls was on strike. All he had to do was to take a few 2s and then the match would have been over. But he was under pressure after the Bangladeshi bowler managed three consecutive dot balls. Got out in the 4th ball and the tailend batsmen who came after him didn't had the capability to score the winning runs. A bit more experience would have helped Malaysia at this point. But overall, I am impressed with the progress made by Malaysia over the last few years. |
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This Lionel Sebastián Scaloni can't be sure even about himself if he can sit and coach Argentina in the next World Cup in 2026 or not.
We are talking about the next two years and everything is possible, for example, if Messi gets injured during this time, I'm sure there will be more chance to win this palyer in the 2026 world cup and it's still soon to say if he can play there or not. Scaloni has been coaching the Argentine squad ever since 2018, and they have performed credibly under him. It is not just the World Cup win in 2022, but Argentina made some sort of a comeback during the last 3-4 years under Scaloni. Now they are the no.1 ranked side in the world. They do have exceptionally good players such as Lionel Messi and Emiliano Martínez, but the contribution from Scaloni in building the team bonding and tactics can't be ignored. Even for the 2026 tournament, they will be the most favored team to lift the trophy, with or without Messi. |
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It is not going to be a repeat of 2019. New Zealand as of now is a much weakened squad. Even with the addition of Trent Boult, they are not one of the favorites. Regularly losing players to franchise T20 leagues have impacted their performance and the addition of players from South Africa (Devon Conway, Glenn Philips.etc) hasn't yet neutralized this loss. So for today's match, I would rather consider England as the overwhelming favorites. And it is going to be a tough task for New Zealand even to qualify for the semi-finals.
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The thing with those sites like Facebook, YouTube, etc, is that they are not the same for everyone.
What you see there is dependent on your viewing history, what you are subscribed to, what you have liked, and many more things.
So, I don't think you can put a label in general to those sites, as they will show right wing stuff to some people and left wing stuff to others, and so on
Well.. I am not talking about advertisements and targeted content. YouTube has a history of deleting channels that deal with anything even remotely right-wing and Facebook is also close behind when it comes to censoring right-wing content. At this point, Twitter is the only social media channel that follows content neutrality. And it happened only because Elon Musk succeeded in purchasing Twitter and kicking out ghouls such as Vijaya Gadde, Yoel Roth and Parag Agrawal. And even after these people were fired, the left-wing cabal tried to pressurize Elon into reversing his decision, by indulging in various boycott campaigns. |
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