I have to disagree with you. IMO, franchise leagues have done more to cricket than meaningless bilateral tours. I don't see any reason to give preference to national duty over franchise cricket. Perhaps the ICC can make it mandatory for the players to appear for their respective countries in world cups. Other than that, there should not be any restrictions. T20 leagues have brought new fans and money in to cricket. Test cricket on the other hand has played a large part in driving out younger fans and making cricket more unpopular.

LOL.. everyone went for KKR today and therefore points gained remain at 0 for all the participants. No one really expected KKR to lose to such a weak team. I was hoping for a KKR win until the last moment. Venkatesh Iyer got KL Rahul early on and nearly got Shahrukh Khan out, but Tripathi just couldn't hold on to the catch. If that catch was taken, then in all probability KKR would have won. Anyway, a win by Kings suits me more. Narrow win by KKR would have meant just one point for me, and two points each to JSRAW and Rapter.

Bangladesh is the same country where a few Bitcoin traders got arrested recently, right? The reason being given was that Bitcoin is illegal in Bangladesh and the traders were operating without a license. So why this u-turn now? Still personal comments from one minister can't be translated as support from the government. From what I understand, he is a junior-ranking minister and don't have much influence on the decisions that are being taken by the finance ministry. I am waiting for an official statement from the Bangladesh Bank.

If there is a curfew, then it needs to be implemented continuously. In my country also, there were some states imposing night curfew. I don't understand the point in doing that. Hardly anyone come out during the night time and the chances of spreading the virus is very low during this time. So what is the point in coming up with a curfew? The so called "experts" have been proved wrong multiple times during this pandemic. First it was the WHO making all sort of blunders, then it was the national advisors coming up with stupid theories such as "herd immunity".

This is what happens when the team is overdependent on a handful of players. They were heavily dependent on Warner and Williamson for batting, and Rashid Khan for bowling. The problem is that these players can't be in good form all the time and there may be ups and downs. The other players need to provide support during bad times, and that hasn't happened yet. Only Wriddhiman Saha has been consistent with the bat. Jason Roy had one good game and then his form went downhill. And I am not sure what role players like Abdul Samad and Priyam Garg are doing in SRH squad.

^^^ RR had very little chance of winning the match and that is represented in the picks by various users. The problem here with the pool is that if we pick an underdog and ends up with a win, we would still receive just 1 point. It is not like a normal bet, when we get much better returns when the underdog wins. So it makes no sense to make a bet in favor of a team, which is having low chances of victory. Expect the same for today's match (Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Chennai Super Kings) as well. Most of the bets will be favoring CSK. 

The next set of matches are scheduled for next week (8th to 12th October). Each team will be playing two matches each. And after this round, we will be having a clear idea about the teams that are going to qualify for Qatar 2022 (at least for most of the groups). I have created a list of most important matches. Check out this list (only in cases which can have an impact on qualification prospects):

Finland vs Ukraine (battle for the second spot in Group D) - 9th Oct
Czechia vs Wales (for second spot in Group E) - 8th Oct
Scotland vs Israel (second spot in Group F) - 9th Oct
Turkey vs Norway (Group G, for 1st, 2nd, 3rd spot) - 8th Oct
Russia vs Slovakia, Russia vs Slovenia (RU needs to win both to gain top spot in Group H) - 8th Oct, 11th Oct.
Albania vs Poland (Group I, second spot) - 12th Oct
Romania vs Armenia (Group J, second spot) - 11th Oct

Match looks evenly poised. Scotland in a slightly better position, at 100/2. This is the 11th match for Papua New Guinea in ICC Men's Cricket World Cup League 2. And they have lost all 10 matches before this. They're at the bottom of the points table. For Scotland, they need a win against one of the weakest sides. They have 6 wins from 10 matches and today's win will take them to the second position (replacing the United States). Oman is at the top, thanks to all the mercenary players from Pakistan and India.

Well... Samson failed today. I guess his bad patch has started again. Today it was Evin Lewis and Yashaswi Jaiswal who gave them a very good start. But amazing to see the RCB bowlers pulling back things in the final overs. Harshal Patel has to be one of the most underrated bowlers in the IPL. At times he can be expensive, but he always picks up important wickets. But quite shocked to see RCB dropping Jamieson. He is one of the most expensive buys.. do they think that Garton is a better bowler compared to him?

Should be easy for the RCB, given all the batting superstars in their squad. But we never know. It is the RCB, and they are among the most inconsistent franchises. And RR have some really good bowlers, who can put RCB under pressure. We saw that during the match between RR and Punjab Kings, when Punjab couldn't achieve the easiest target of 8 runs in 2 overs. So I would say that right now the match looks 50:50. It can go either way. If the RR bowlers bowl tight, then who knows? They may get 2 points today.

Now it is the delta variant which is causing the maximum number of infections and the existing vaccines have limited efficacy against this strain. A recent study found that the Pfizer vaccine has an efficacy of less than 50%, and the Chinese vaccines perform even worse. The plus point here is that if you are fully vaccinated, then the chances of hospitalizations and death are much lower. But the pandemic is not getting contained and despite the vaccination there is no big drop in the number of people who are getting infected.

They persisted with David Warner for so long, despite his poor form. And Jason Roy was just sitting at the bench, endlessly waiting for his chances. If he was given a chance earlier, then SRH would have been in a much better position. SRH resembles CSK in 2020 season. At one point, CSK had just 1-2 wins from their 10 matches, but they won 3 out of the next 4 matches (that was when Ruturaj Gaikwad was included in the playing XI and they finally dropped the out of form Kedar Jadahav). CSK in 2020, SRH in 2021.

Now I am 100% sure that all of this is scripted. Caleb hasn't abused anyone like this in any of his previous fights. If he is deviating from his normal behavior, then it is either resulting from the directives given by the organizers (to increase the viewership count and publicity), or as a result of a plan being drafted by his team in order to provoke Canelo. Either way, I don't disapprove of these cheap tactics. This is not the right way to attract more viewership and interest. And when you have a legend like Canelo at one end, you definitely don't need this.

Dude, you serious? RR lost yesterday's match and I think it's due to your bet. 

You guys won't believe what happened to me. Before the start of the round, I placed my bets for all the matches and locked them. And then SRH started losing match after match. I wanted to change my bet to RR for yesterday's match, but it was not possible (since I already locked them). And know what? I got two points from yesterday's match. I couldn't believe my luck when I saw the points table. And JSRAW was the only other user who made a bet in favor of SRH. Everyone else went for RR.

The problem is that most of the time Samson scores a half century, his team ends up on the losing side. His captaincy is very poor. Last year, Steve Smith's captaincy worked well for RR, but poor form with the bat meant that he was kicked out of the squad. Samson has so far failed to fill the vacuum. RR currently has very weak team bonding and this is evident from their poor performance despite the presence of so many good players. And on top of that, the pullout of English players had a serious impact on them. No other franchise was affected due to the pullout more than RR. 

That's why people rely more and more on browsers like TOR. BTW, in normal cases a VPN ensures your anonymity. It assigns you a new IP address, which makes it near impossible for the government agencies to track you. But in case of China, they have technologically advanced surveillance tools, so the safety can't be guaranteed. The problem here is that the ISP provider will be knowledgeable about your VPN usage. If the police request them about the details, then they will forced to share it. The catch here is that the police needs a court order to make such a request. I guess in China getting a court order is relatively easy.

There are certain formalities before the government agencies can request that sort of information from the internet provider. So they can't just randomly check the internet access of some guy who is waging $10 or $20 in online gambling. And for search warrant, the requirements are even stricter. The judge or some other higher ranking official needs to agree to the finding that there is a reasonable suspicion that the individual is engaged in illegal activity. Anyway these sort of stupid laws will be struck down by the courts once someone files a PIL.

LOL.. comparing Canelo Álvarez with Anthony Joshua? The former is a legend, while the latter is a media product who is overhyped beyond all limits. Usyk could win over AJ because the latter's skill sets are not extraordinary. That is not the case with Canelo. He is far ahead of anyone else in his weight class. That gap didn't existed between AJ and Usyk. AJ was the clear favorite, but no one thought that he was invincible. In case of Canelo, I would say that he's near invincible. Caleb may be having +500 or +600 odds with him, but I would say that even these odds are over-predicting his chances. 

LOL.. just noticed that I am ranked #3 currently. A few days ago, when I checked, I was at #5 or #6. Looks like some of my picks worked well and I received some margin points. I am quite surprised actually because I made bets favoring MI in all of their matches and they lost most of them. Made some bets for SRH as well and they are doing horribly. Anyway.. I am happy with the current standing.. and I hope to finish within the top-3 this year (last year, I missed that during the final round of matches).

I would place Delhi Capitals ahead of CSK. At the third position I would put RCB and KKR at the 4th position. Other four franchises don't have a real chance. Delhi looks like the most balanced team right now. They have the best bowling and batting lineup and the optimal mix of Indian and overseas players. CSK is also looking good, but they are heavily dependent on the top order for batting. Their middle order is not that strong (apart from Jadeja). Dhoni is playing well, at least when compared to the 2020 season, but he is still far below his peak form.