New Zealand scored 128 runs in the first innings. They gave Bangladesh a target of 129 runs. Not a very bad collection for New Zealand. But if they could have scored more than 140 runs, they could have been in the safe zone to win. 128 runs does not seem to be enough to win against Bangladesh. Because, New Zealand does not have an experienced bowler. I think Bangladesh will win the series 3-0 today.
The pitch is very supportive to bowling (especially spin) and in case New Zealand bowlers perform up to the mark, then they will be able to win. That said, I am not sure whether they will be able to do that. I was watching the previous matches live on FanCode, and the New Zealand players looked like a demoralized lot. They have started well, though. Two of the Bangladeshi batsmen are back in the pavillion (Mahedi Hasan & Liton Das), with Ajaz Patel and Cole McConchie picking up the wickets. The NZ spinners seems to be performing this time. |
|
|
|
|
Kohli is gone, but the Indian lead has crossed the 200 mark. If Pant and Shardul can add another 30-40 runs, then it will be almost impossible for the Poms to chase (given the fact that the Indian pacers are in excellent form). Advantage with India now, and even if the remaining 4 wickets fell quickly, it will be extremely difficult for England to chase. The point here is not to make any mistake while bowling. Indian pacers don't need to try anything extra. Just bowling in their normal line and length would be enough to dismiss England for sub-200 total.
|
|
|
|
US will have to compete with China as to who should Pakistan be friendlier with. The offer of China to Pakistan and Afghanistan to be part of their silkroad plans will probably be materialized now that there will be an authority (Talibans) there in Afghanistan. China legitimizing Taliban as the authority in Afghanistan will likely be accepted by many as well.
But they have to fight other forces again. Odd as it may seem, Talibans and US army are already joining forces to fight ISIS. Now they only have one enemy. It looks like a scene from a movie right? China doesn't really care about terrorism or human rights and they can afford to enter into an alliance with the Taliban. And Russia seems to be following the same footsteps. The US government doesn't have this freedom. However, in retaliation the United States can strengthen their relationship with India. But the current Democrat administration is not seen as very friendly towards India (unlike the previous one headed by Trump). But in order to take a stance, the US first of all need to have a president who can make decisions on his own. Biden is simply not fit for the job. |
|
|
|
Winning against Bangladesh on their home has always been difficult, yet New Zealand sent their second-tier team here. New Zealand will play a five-match T20 series. My prediction is that Bangladesh will win this series 4-1 like their previous series. Already Bangladesh is lead by 2-0.
New Zealand probably doesn't care even if they lose by 5-0. This was just practise ahead of the T20 World Cup, which will be starting next month. And New Zealand always prioritize test cricket over other formats. How can they compete against Bangladesh, without any of their regular bowlers? Boult, Jamieson, Ferguson, Milne, Southee and Santner all unavailable for this tour. On top of that, they are missing their best batsmen like Williamson and Taylor. Does it really surprise you that they are performing poorly? |
|
|
|
It was a great win for Sri Lanka. We have seen the dominance of South African batsmen in the entire match. As the first 4 batsmen of South Africa have performed, this match should have been easily won by South Africa. They have failed to perform well and have been defeated. They should be more focused on batting.
With 4 overs to go, South Africa had around 90% chance of winning. But then the Sri Lankan bowlers did a magnificent job, and tightened the screws. The required run rate was climbing up, and that resulted in South African batsmen falling like a pack of cards. Anyway, it was not all negative for South Africa, and there were a lot of positives that they could take away from the first match. But win by Sri Lanka upset my calculation for the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup Super League. All of a sudden, they have now moved up to the 8th position. |
|
|
|
Lead is 99 freaking runs.. Once again England in very strong position they needed a sizable lead because batting last will not be cakewalk so this lead is very handy. India need to put at least 350 runs on the board now otherwise their chances are slim. 350 runs -- Wishful thinking--  Given the lack of form from the middle and lower order, that is almost impossible. BTW, there has been a lot of controversy over the omission of Ravichandran Ashwin from the team. Michael Vaughan has stated that it is just "madness" to leave out Ashwin from the playing XI. In the social media a lot of the users have been urging Ashwin to retire in protest. We are talking about an individual who is currently no.2 in the ICC test bowler ranking, and having 413 test wickets and 2,685 test runs to his name (including five centuries). |
|
|
|
I still believe the stage cryptocurrency adoption is in is at early adoption stage. The fact that the number of people who are still not aware of what cryptocurrencies are and what they do still outnumbers those who do know and had at least cryptocurrency assets within their portfolios serves as enough reason for me to believe so. We needed more people to know more about the wonders crypto could offer the people, level the playing field and make it everyone's game for us to be considered into a new stage of cryptocurrency adoption, plus there are still untapped potential within cryptocurrencies that we are still yet to uncover, enough for me to personally consider that cryptocurrencies are still at its infancy. Absolutely agreed with this. Look at the transaction volume, and don't just go by the claimed userbase. Compared to the volumes for fiat currencies, the proportion for cryptocurrency is very minute. And although it is claimed that there are tens of millions of cryptocurrency users, how many of them are active in this sector? Even tens of millions is nothing when compared to billions of fiat currency users. The trend is moving in the right direction, and we have userbase increasing at a steady pace. I would say that this is a good sign. |
|
|
|
@Sithara007 I wonder if the South African selectors will take bold calls post this debacle, or will they continue to pick a team that has no good finisher and continue losing matches like this.
Also which player’s do you’ll feel should be included in their team, and keeping aside the politics if only merit counted then whom would you’ll consider ready to play in the playing 11.
There is no point in talking about their race based selection policy.. because it is just going to get worse. From 2022 onward, 7 out of the 11 players need to be non-white. I just hope that the black payers are able to effectively replace those white guys getting kicked out next year. Bowling should not be an issue. Already they have a bunch of good players, such as Rabada, Ngidi and Shamsi. But the batting department is just going to collapse. I couldn't find a single non-white batsman of international quality in South Africa. Hopefully they will be able to find someone within the next 3-4 months. |
|
|
|
South Africa needs 65 runs from 42 balls. However, South Africa lost only 3 wickets. Sri Lanka still has a chance to win. If they are able to bowl planned then they can win. It will not be easy to collect 65 runs from 42 balls. Van der Dussen is batting well, if he stays at the crease maybe South Africa will win. There is a reason why South Africa is known as eternal chokers of world cricket. From 260/3 (46 overs), they somehow managed to end up at 286/6 (50 overs). After Kyle Verreynne got out, their batting simply collapsed. Andile Phehlukwayo wasted a lot of balls at crucial stages (trust me, this is not the first time he is doing this), and it put a lot of pressure on Heinrich Klaasen at the other end. The biggest weakness for South Africa now is their lower order batting. They need to kick out unproductive guys like Phehlukwayo. |
|
|
|
Root's wicket was very important. Because Root alone could have ruined the Indian team. England lost 3 wickets for only 53 runs. If the Indian bowlers can bowl well in the first session of the next day, then we can enjoy an interesting match. Otherwise, England will win this test as usual.
LOL.. for me it looks as if India is having an upper hand. The surface is very supportive of seam bowling (which hints why Ashwin wasn't included in the playing XI), and if the Indian pacers can get England all out for 150-160, then there is a good chance of India going up 2-1 in this series. Morale matters a lot. Right now the Indian morale is high, and England is in a spot of bother. This match can swing either way from this point, and tomorrow's first session is going to be extremely important. |
|
|
|
I think Tamim Iqbal has made this decision cause he is angry. BCB has a lot of talented players. But they are not as experienced as opening batting on a platform like the World Cup. Maybe Tamim Iqbal will change his mind. That is what I hope.
LOL.. not surprised with any of this. The Bangladesh Cricket Board seems to be having regular issues with some of the senior players. Tamim has contributed greatly to the team over the years. The BCB should have shown him a little more respect. And all this comes at the worst time. The T20 World Cup is being hosted by the UAE/Oman and Bangladesh has been in really good form recently. This tournament represents an opportunity for them to make it big in an ICC event. If they try hard, then a semi-final spot won't be impossible to achieve. |
|
|
|
This is just a practice tournament. Do not get over excited with this win. The main match will happen when the T20 world cup will commence. If Bangladesh can perform the same way that they have with Australia and New Zealand then they will be a team to reckon in this Worldcup. Btw, amazing performance by the Bangladesh team.
Obviously sub-continent teams will be at an advantage, since the pitches in UAE/Oman are similar to those in India and Bangladesh. And Pakistan and Afghanistan will be having an added advantage, since they have played a lot in these grounds. Also, a lot of Pakistani and Afghan players regularly take part in the T20/T10 leagues organized by the ECB and the Oman cricket board. The real challenge will be for teams like New Zealand. If they can't adjust with the conditions, then they will be in a very bad state. |
|
|
|
|
OK.. two hours to go for the start of the 4th match, fingers crossed. The last thing I want at this point is a rain interruption. And fortunately, the weather prediction looks good with less than 10% chance of precipitation. Just a few hours ago, Bharat Arun came up with a controversial statement that the selectors erred by not picking Ashwin. I guess his time as the bowling coach is up, and now he feels more liberated to make such comments. But the fact is that Ashiwn, at this moment is the no.2 ranked test bowler as per the ICC.
|
|
|
|
Formalities i suppose?
I believe i saw on my twitter feed that Sir Jadeja is 100% fit. I would be very surprise if SKY making his debut in English condition because you never throw your newborn in front of the hungry wolves, Vihari may be... chances are slim tho. Yeah.. chances of Rahane getting dropped is low. His position is shaky, but the selectors may include him for the remainder of the series. But if he fails to perform, then he may be kicked out (after the series) and in all probability will never be able to make a comeback. It is tragic.. as he was one of the best performers in 2019. Scored two centuries - one each against West Indies and South Africa. He is not that old, but Rahane has been out of form for too long, and I believe that his time with the Indian national team is up. |
|
|
|
@bryant.coleman the possible theory is that they didn’t consider Bangladesh strong enough, and that’s why in their overconfidence they decided to not have any practice matches. Also this failure will serve them well, as it’ll help them understand where they need to be better and hopefully they’ll perform better in their upcoming matches.
If that is the actual reason, then I have to say that they made a grave mistake. Bangladesh is not considered as anywhere near the big-3, but still they can upset the best teams on their day. The only negative is that they are a bit over-dependent on some of their senior players. But the current Bangladesh is perhaps the strongest they ever had, since they received the test status from ICC in 2000. Hopefully, now they will be able to improvise further and reduce the dependence on players like Shakib al Hasan. |
|
|
|
Of course you are right that only a few members of the New Zealand main team are in the team, all the rest are new faces. However, this is everyone's expectation that New Zealand will play well.
The national boards have almost completely stopped international tours by 'A 'teams and the U-19 teams. As a result, apart from the main 4-5 batsmen, the others don't have sufficient experience of playing in hostile conditions. On top of that, the Bangladeshi spinners have been in terrific form recently. New Zealand board should have at least played a couple of warm-up matches before the outings against the national team. They could have at least got used to the conditions and avoided this humiliation. |
|
|
|
|
LOL.. pathetic performance by New Zealand. They are at 52/7 and I really doubt whether they will be able to make a total in excess of 60. And remember that the conditions in UAE will be very similar to those in Bangladesh. NZ is missing some of the big names such as Williamson and Taylor, but I wasn't expecting such a debacle. As expected, it is the spin bowlers who did the damage - Shakib al Hasan, Mahedi Hasan and Nasum Ahmed. Tough times await New Zealand during the T20 world cup, and if their performance is like this then I would be surprised if they could qualify for the knockout stage.
|
|
|
|
~~
I don't have any problem with Vihari but i doubt if Virat is ready to leave his deputy atm and if we look at the last 2 years numbers Rahane looked better batman when comparing to Kohli.
~~~ Both Rahane and Kohli have been out of form for sometime. The difference is that Kohli can't be dropped even if he scores 0 runs in the next 5 matches, while Rahane may get dropped after this series if his form doesn't improve. But one thing we need to remember is that Rahane and Pujara are the two test-specific batsmen in the Indian squad currently. Everyone else is better in the shorter format compared to test. Rahane averages 38.85 for 2020, and 21.05 so far in 2021. But he had a test average of 71.33 in 2019 (642 runs from 8 matches). Compared to him, Kohli's record is worse. Average of 19.33 in 2020, and 27.15 in 2021. But in 2019, he had scored @ 68.00 (612 runs from 8 matches). |
|
|
|
It could be the best time to buy Bitcoin and Ethereum at the same time now. Bitcoin price is not able to resist against $50k resistance level and the price is still stagnant nowadays. But after breaking it, I think that its way will be wide open. While Bitcoin is in such condition, Ethereum price continues to increase interestingly. With Ethereum 2.0, there will not be a big hindrance for it except Bitcoin's movements and I believe that it can double its price at least in a new bull run.
Bitcoin looks attractive at current levels (i.e sub-50K), while ETH went up by a lot recently. Given the issues with high transaction fee and scalability, this increase is not justified IMO. For me, ETH doesn't look as attractive as BTC currently. The same argument goes for some of the other altcoins such as ADA, BNB and SOL. These coins have gone up quite a lot recently and the current valuation is not justified if we take the adoption and acceptability in to account. So compared to all these options, my pick would be Bitcoin. |
|
|
|
Agree with what you said because the US has enough on their plate already and don't they need to add more. But, let me get this straight. Are you Kamala to replace Biden as the President?
What I read is that lawmakers wrote a letter to Biden to let Kamala take the role of controlling the illegal immigration at the southern border.
Biden doesn't look fit to be the president of the United States. I don't believe that he has dementia, as the GOP House members would like to argue, but he is not looking to be in good state. So it is just a matter of time before Kamala replaces him as the POTUS. Actually it is like killing two birds with one stone. Kamala is so radical and she is almost unelectable. So it will be good for her if she becomes the POTUS without an election. And hopefully in the next two years, she can create a moderate image for herself and that may enable her to edge past the GOP candidate in 2024 (Ron DeSantis?). |
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
