Qatar is a country with this hot weather and that's why they had cooling devices even in stadiums otherwise considering the number of fans in stadiums it could be so hard for the visitors to even stay in the stadiums that's why as far as I know most of the games was at night and the world cup was in winter to make sure about the weather but we won't have these problems in America and especially in Canada in 2026.
The next FIFA World Cup will be held from June-July 2026. And the day-time temperature in Southern cities such as Los Angeles can climb to 30-32 degrees during this time. It may not be as hot as the Arabian peninsula, but many of the European and East Asian teams will be at a disadvantage. Anyway, this is not new. Back in 2014, the world cup was held in Brazil, and many of the host cities were quite hot and humid. My only concern is about the rains. If there is no rain interruption, then I am OK with whatever timeline they decide. |
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I guess Gujarat Titans has a higher chance of win today, since their squad is more balanced. On top of that, the tactics from Hardik Pandya have worked wonders so far. I would like to see Josh Little playing today's match. He was expensive during the previous matches, but he is a wicket taking bowler. During the last few matches, GT substituted Little with Noor Ahmad. If Little is included in the squad, he can work in tandem with Shami and Pandya. And similarly, I don't know why Dewald Brevis is not included in the playing XI for Mumbai Indians.
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Disappointed to see that Ireland couldn't make 500 in their first innings. After Andy McBrine and Curtis Campher got out, the tailend batsmen failed to add a lot of runs. And the Lankans have started really well. They are at 68/0 after 16 overs. The pitch doesn't offer any sort of support for the bowlers. The good thing is that Ireland has 3 specialized spinners in Andy McBrine, Ben White and Matthew Humphreys. On top of that, Paul Stirling can also be handy with his off-spin (however, given the fact that he was forced to retire yesterday as a result of cramps, I am not sure whether he will bowl).
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Babar Azam's performance in this series was not good. Still, after winning the first two matches, I don't think Pakistan can't win the series. I expected Pakistan to win in the last match as well. Despite setting a huge target of 194 runs, they were defeated. The performance of the bowlers was uncontrollable. This is the main reason for defeat. In 5 overs of the power play, New Zealand managed to collect only 27 runs for the loss of 3 wickets. And at the end of 10 overs, their collection was only 73 runs. Then New Zealand won the match with the help of Mark Chapman's defiant batting.
Something wrong with Pakistan in T20 format. They lost the series against Afghanistan (one of the weaker sides), and now they have tied the series 2-2 with New Zealand. And it's not like they didn't had enough runs on board. 193/5 is a very decent total and Mohammad Rizwan really toiled hard to take them there. And the match was firmly in Pakistan's grasp until James Neesham joined Mark Chapman for the 5th wicket. Suddenly world class bowlers like Shaheen Shah Afridi and Haris Rauf started spraying the ball all over the crease and in the end the Kiwis handed out yet another humiliation for Pakistan. |
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Ireland looks somewhat comfortable at this point. They are 431/6, and today they lost the wickets of Lorcan Tucker and Paul Stirling. After their disastrous performance during the first test, in this match they have made a big improvement. A number of batsmen have contributed, including Andy Balbirnie. The 7th wicket partnership between Curtis Campher and Andy McBrine has so far added 46 runs. If they could dig in, then a total in excess of 500 can't be ruled out. Graham Hume and Matthew Humphreys to come next, but these are genuine tailend batsmen.
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Exactly the reason why Qatar World Cup happened in winter season because the humidity and temperature is not that much of a problem compared if they will commence the games in summer just like what we used to because the heat will become a major problem to the audience especially the players who are playing under the heat of the sun. But even if it's already winter season when the games happened in the recent World Cup, the stadiums still needed a lot of help to cool it down.
The schedule of FIFA World Cup in 2022 overlapped with some of the major European leagues and many of the clubs were even threatening that they will not release any of the players for the tournament. In the end however, FIFA was able to settle a deal between them and the clubs. However, for me this sends the wrong signal. World Cup is the most important tournament for the sport of football, and greedy clubs want it to be given a low priority. Going forward, I am sure that these sort of clashes will become more frequent. |
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SRH keeps sinking and I feel that they will end up at the bottom of the table at this rate. Harry Brook might be a superstar in international cricket, but he is playing like a complete amateur in the IPL.
DC bounced back in spectacular fashion despite struggling at 75/5 at one stage. However, they only won thanks to SRH's mediocre batting line-up.
Sometimes it can be difficult to keep up with the expectations. Happened to Kyle Jamieson in one of the previous seasons. Even then, he hasn't done that poorly. He scored an unbeaten 100 against the Kolkata Knight Riders two weeks ago, which enabled Sunrisers Hyderabad to win that match (one of their two wins so far in this season). But apart from that solitary innings, Brook doesn't have a single score in excess of 20. None of the Hyderabad batsmen have so far scored a total of 200 runs in this season. Agarwal, Brook and Tripathi have totals of 164, 163 and 160 runs respectively. |
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Hyderabad lost an easy match yesterday. SRH lost in Satran where they needed 145 runs from 120 balls to win. SRH's two opening batsmen started well in the beginning but later the batsmen could not provide good support. SRH lost one wicket after another. If SRH wins this match, SRH will have 6 points in the points table, which will give Hyderabad a chance of playoffs if they do well in the next matches. But after losing this match, the distance of SRH from the playoffs increased a lot. Congratulations Delhi Capitals.
Sunrisers Hyderabad made the big mistake when they refused to retain Kane Williamson. He was like the backbone of their batting, and the other batsmen such as Harry Brook, Mayank Agarwal and Heinrich Klaasen are clearly unable to fill the vacuum that was left by him. Poor batting is the no.1 reason why they are currently at the 9th place in the points table. And yesterday they lost to a team that is at the no.10 spot. And can someone please explain me why guys like Abhishek Sharma and Abdul Samad are in the squad despite not contributing anything with the bat? |
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It is very difficult to say why such great soccer nations like Germany and Italy are in crisis. German and Italian clubs are very successful in European club competitions, but their national teams are not, with the exception of Italy at the last EURO.
For me, the main favorites at the EURO are France, England, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, but also Croatia as a hidden favorite.
The national team that has Modrić and won 2 medals at the last 2 world cups simply can't be underestimated.
However, in my opinion, France has the best chance. Success of the clubs doesn't automatically translate to good performance by the national teams. Because a majority of the players will be ineligible to represent the national team due to foreign citizenship. Germany is in crisis for sure, although I am not that sure about Italy. But then the very fact that Italy failed to qualify for the FIFA World Cup of 2022 tells a lot about the challenges they are facing. In case of Germany, they are simply unable to replace the star players who retired in the past few years. At this point they are heavily dependent on players like Thomas Müller and İlkay Gündoğan. |
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Saudia Arabia Is a strong country and its league will definitely make alot of name in cricket world Arabs have alot of tendency to make their words real.
In my opinion Indians and Saudis will eventually end up together for growth of the cricket in Saudi Arabia.
Indians have alot of skills as far as diplomatic relations are concerned.
The problem is that the market for cricket is already saturated. IPL takes away 3 months every year from the calendar and then there are bilateral tours by the Indian team and the ICC tournaments. There is simply not enough spare time available to accommodate the Saudi league. And the BCCI is not that stupid to allow the Saudi Arabian Cricket Federation to take control of the Indian market. It will negatively impact the popularity of the IPL, and in turn the BCCI revenues will nosedive. So in all probability, the Saudis are going to pour tons of money in to the new league and they are not going to get anything in return. |
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Absolutely. I bet on Kamala to be the nominee with pretty good outcome odds, 17.00  they will be lower int the future, I'm pretty sure of that, so, it's better to place your bet right now, if you believe she has a good chance. I placed a small bet on her just in case. Won't make a millionaire if I win my bet, but will be enough for a 4-pack of Guinness and a can of Pringles, I guess.  I don't know what to say about these odds. They seem so far away from reality. At this point, Kamala is the second most probable Democrat nominee for the POTUS 2024 elections. Given this, odds of 17.00 for her sounds outright crazy. In case Biden decided to run again in 2024 (which he has done), then I don't believe that anyone form his party would challenge him (obviously Kennedy is an exception). But there is a real possibility that Biden would not be able to run in 2024, either due to ailing health, or due to scandals (Hunter Biden story?). |
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I think that the quality of football in a competition does not depend on the organization of the tournament, but on the quality of the players and the teams.
Qatar invested a lot of money in new stadiums that they will no longer need, and have we so easily forgotten the difficult conditions in which foreign workers built those stadiums and how many were injured or lost their lives in the process?
Suspicions that Qatar won the organization of the world cup through corrupt practices have not yet been resolved.
Qatar was the most expensive host in history to watch live World Cup matches and largely inaccessible to ordinary fans.
I think that in this whole story, only FIFA was satisfied because of the big profits and Qatar because of the big promotion of an authoritarian and undemocratic country. There are a few corrections. There is no suspicion that Qatar bribed the delegates during the vote for hosting rights. This is an established facts. Some of the delegates (especially those from the poor countries) received expensive gifts worth millions of USD from the Qatari delegation. And FIFA refused to take any action despite these facts being proved. And I am not sure whether FIFA gained anything by staging the tournament in Qatar. FIFA officials benefited in terms of kickbacks, but overall the revenues fell short of expectation due to the refusal from Qatari authorities to relax the anti-visitor regulations. |
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New Zealand didn't get off to a good start but they had some good batting players. Their wickets fell during the powerplay but Chapman and Neesham were instrumental in the match-winners to ensure New Zealand victory. Pakistan started a good over at the start and later New Zealand got the win thanks to their fast bowlers. Pakistani bowlers scored the most runs in overs number 11, 12, 13, 14. Here E Chapman secures a century and their victory is assured. Out of five matches, Pakistan won two, New Zealand won two and one match was postponed. The Pakistani bowlers needed just one more wicket, but they were unable to take it. When Daryl Mitchell got out, New Zealand needed 121 runs to win from 10 overs, at required run rate of more than 12 runs per over. Mark Chapman and James Neesham started smashing the Pakistani bowlers left, right and center from this point and apart from Imad Wasim all the other bowlers went for plenty. I have pointed this out many times in the past, but the absence of a quality spin bowler is still hurting Pakistan. Imad bowled well yesterday, but after all he is a part-timer. |
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Ireland team haven't got big experience and have played only few test matches. This is really great innings from the Ireland team. Sri Lanka is a strong team, for sure the team will do its best. The best coming from Sri Lanka needs to be valuable, if not match could go into the hands of Ireland. Simple test series based on the first test match result have turned to be more interesting. Lets see what happens at the end of the match.
The problem with Ireland is consistency. Now they have performed really well in Day1, amassing a total of 319 runs. But they should not get carried away. 4 days remain in this match and they need to get to a total of at least 450-500. One challenge is that Paul Stirling may not be available as he got retired hurt yesterday. So essentially they are five down, although the total is 319/4. Anyway, the partnership between Lorcan Tucker and Curtis Campher is worth 87 runs till now and if they can add another 100 runs, then Ireland will be in a very comfortable position. |
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If the match was held between Nepal and Saudi Arabia, I would have favored Nepal. Because I think Saudi Arabia has arrived in the world of cricket after Nepal. And Nepal team has been playing cricket since long time and they are always excited about cricket and research how to take the team forward.
That game has been abandoned because of rain. Nepal is much more experienced and strong team then Saudi. Saudi don't have any local player rather all there players belong to Pakistan or few from India. Nepal performance can be analysed from recent ICC Men's Cricket World Cup League 2. Nepal was probably expecting 2 points from the match against Saudi Arabia, but as a result of rain interruption they got only one. In order to secure the semi-final spot, they need to win their last match, which is against Qatar. In case Nepal loses this match, and Oman wins theirs against Saudi Arabia, then Oman will top the group instead of Nepal. Group B looks set BTW. Hong Kong and United Arab Emirates are leading with 5 and 4 points respectively and the other teams are far behind. IMO, these 4 teams may qualify for the semi-finals: Nepal, Oman, United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong. |
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Delhi Capitals are still at the bottom of the points table, but they have got two consecutive wins now. David Warner's tactics worked well yesterday and Delhi was able to defend a very low total of 144/9. For Sunrisers Hyderabad, the star batsmen remain out of form (Harry Brook, Rahul Tripathi & Aiden Markram), and in bowling department only Bhuvneshwar Kumar performed well yesterday. BTW, I was surprised to see that Umran Malik bowled just 2 overs yesterday. Is he injured? There is no other excuse not to fully use the main strike bowler for SRH.
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Dhoni doesn't want to reach the crease earlier. Most of the time his entry is just to cheer the audience, because a huge crowd comes for him and this can be disappointing. Just the two balls made the crowd feel happy. He lets the players have their freedom and perform at the right position. As said it is too early to think about lifting the trophy, because the competition is at its high and every team is performing well. With yesterday's match CSK have scored 200+ runs in 26 matches and it is the team to have such a record. In IPL 2023 it the team to score maximum number of sixes. Chennai have got best opening that is much helpful for the middle order to perform without much pressure. On the bowling line-up, improvement is needed.
Nowadays Mahendra Singh Dhoni is mostly playing in the role of specialist wicket-keeper. But he has made crucial contributions when it mattered. Remember the 32 from 17 balls for Chennai Super Kings during the match against Rajasthan Royals? Despite his age, he is still capable of lighting up the fireworks towards the end overs. The reason why he bats so down the order is because CSK do have a very strong middle order. Shivam Dube, Moeen Ali and Ravindra Jadeja are capable of scoring 10-12 runs per over during the final powerplay. Dhoni hardly gets a chance to bat because of them. |
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There is some bad news for Nepal. The match between Nepal and Saudi Arabia has been delayed as a result of rain interruption. Nepal currently leads Group A with 4 points from 2 matches, but probably they were expecting 2 points from this match, as KSA is a very weak team. Oman is also having 4 points and there is a good chance that they may overtake Nepal if they are able to win the next match. The other match is between Bahrain and Hong Kong in Group B. Currently Hong Kong is leading Group B with 4 points, but once again the match has been delayed as a result of rain.
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Nepal is improving alot interms of cricket and there game they are not defeating many opponents .
Looking forward to see Nepal in world cup and their competition with big teams .
The ICC did their best in sabotaging Nepali cricket over the years. If you look at the funding structure, Nepal is receiving only 20% of the amount that they used to receive a decade ago. But now the Cricket Association of Nepal has become more or less self-sufficient. They are generating significant amount of revenues within Nepal and are not overdependent on the ICC. And among the full members, Nepal hasn't received support from anyone except Pakistan. But now the ICC doesn't have any choice other than to increase the funding, since their performance has been exceptional in the recent past. |
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Hyderabad managed to score 200 plus runs only against KKR. Hyderabad have played 6 matches so far scoring only 150 plus runs in two matches.. Hyderabad's batting line is not very good. Hyderabad have got two wins from 6 matches so far. 9 position in the ranking.
As a team, they are overdependent on Harry Brook. And he hasn't been very successful so far in this season. From 6 matches, he has made a total of 153 runs. He scored an unbeaten 100 against the Kolkata Knight Riders, but apart from that he hasn't scored more than 20 in any of the matches. And the other Sunrisers Hyderabad batsmen have been in very poor form, including Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi, Mayank Agarwal, Aiden Markram and Heinrich Klaasen. Tripathi had a few decent scores, but Agarwal has so far scored just 115 runs from 6 innings. |
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