Are you sure about this? You are claiming that CSK has better players when compared to RCB. Think again. Because RCB has some of the best T20 players in the world. In the batting department they have Faf du Plessis, Virat Kohli and Glenn Maxwell as the top-3. Then they have promising players like Finn Allen. As the keeper, they have the best option available in India - Dinesh Karthik. And bowling is also top notch. They have Wayne Parnell, Harshal Patel, Josh Hazlewood and Mohammed Siraj as the pacers, and Wanindu Hasaranga as the spinner. You still want to say that CSK has better players? 

Still a lot of opaqueness regarding Neymar's offer from Saudi Arabia. I have reasons to suspect that it was not as lucrative as the ones given to Messi and Ronaldo. Anyway, Paris St-Germain is also owned by Arabs (Qataris, not Saudis) and their contract is also worth a huge sum ($263 million). If Neymar want to stay in Europe, it is understandable. Even Messi's wife was not happy with his move to Saudi Arabia and had asked him to stay with PSG. But fortunately Messi was able to convince her and avoid a $1.2 billion loss to his bank account. 

Well.. if you look at my post, I didn't denied the fact that the Twitter revenues are down (especially those from the advertisements). But at the same time, their expenses are also down. They laid off close to 95% of all the employees and that saves a lot in the form of salaries. Even if we take a conservative estimate of 5,000 employees who got fired, that alone amounts to around $1 billion in savings. And as I mentioned, Twitter still retains the monopoly in micro-blogging domain. There are simply no competitors. As long as the situation remains the same, advertisers will return.

BTW, they have found new revenue sources as well, such as Twitter Blue.

It's not like that. As a result of their inexperience, Afghanistan's performance is very volatile. They will defeat the world's best on one day and go down meekly against them on the next day. At least on paper, both Afghanistan and Sri Lanka looks to be teams of equal strength for me. Afghans are very strong, especially in the bowling department, with players like Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Fazalhaq Farooqi able to trouble the batsmen. Batting has been a bit weak and lacks experience, but they still have explosive batsmen such as Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran. 
 

LOL.. the Indians came back to their senses. Australia once again proved that they are the only team that is capable of challenging the Indians. All credit to Travis Head and Steven Smith, for their unbeaten 251 run 4th partnership. When Marnus Labuschagne got out to the bowling of Mohammed Shami, I was thinking that they may struggle to get to a total of 200. But at the end of first day, Australia stands at a comfortable position of 327/3. India's decision to go with 4 seamers flopped. Although Mohammed Shami and Mohammed Siraj did decent job, the other two hardly bothered the Australian batsmen (Umesh Yadav and Shardul Thakur).   

In terms of infrastructure and facilities, you maybe right. They were top class. What I don't like about Qatar 2022 is the fact that despite spending $250 billion on conducting the tournament, Qatar never compensated the families of 6,000 or so migrant workers who died during the construction of world cup stadiums. FIFA also went silent on this matter. And the fans were not happy about a lot of things. Although visa was not an issue, there was discrimination against LGBT people and unmarried couples, and then there was this last minute ban on alcoholic drinks including beer. 

One of the reasons why the share of salary in IPL is quite low (18% is still decent, I would say) is because the BCCI uses a large part of that revenue to construct infrastructural facilities, and to fund domestic cricket. India has the largest and most complicated domestic system in the world with a total of 38 first class teams. And there are U-23, U-19 and U-16 competitions for both men and women. In the end, IPL revenues trickles down to these less known plyers and a part of that also ends up with non-playing staff such as groundmen and curators. In a way you are right. If there is no purse limit, then this distribution will cease to exist and a few top players will pocket lion's share of the revenues.

But at the same time, this is what the BCCI is doing at international level. Rather than sharing revenue with the smaller nations, they are now pocketing 38.5% of the funds. Is it that difficult for them to practice what they do at home at international level?

Trump's motormouth harms his own party more than anyone else. But he doesn't care much. GOP rank and file have by now resigned to the idea of having Trump as their presidential nominee in 2024, especially after the flopped campaign announcement from Ron DeSantis. Now the X factor is going to be the candidacy from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. There is a real chance that he will run as an independent candidate. But if that happens, IMO his candidacy will have a negative impact on Donald Trump much more than Joe Biden. And a few days back he got the endorsement from Jack Dorsey.

Both the 50-over matches turned out to be one sided affairs today. First it was the turn of Sri Lanka to sweep the floor with the hapless Afghans. Lankans chased down the target with 34 overs to spare, and they lost just 1 wicket in doing that. The match between Karnataka and Namibia also had a similar outcome. Namibia set up a target of 227, and the Indian first class side was able to chase it down in 33.4 overs, after losing just one wicket. Revanna Chethan and Nikin Jose hit centuries for the second consecutive time. Karnataka now leads the series 2-1.

Remarkable recovery by Australia. When Marnus Labuschagne got out, Australia was struggling at 76/3. From there, Steven Smith and Travis Head took them to 327/3. The 4th wicket partnership is now worth 251 runs. Indian seam attack once again proves that they are ineffective without Jasprit Bumrah. None of them, including Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav and Shardul Thakur seemed like they could trouble Smith and Head. And this curse continues for India in ICC tournaments. It is going to be yet another missed opportunity for India. 
 

A 50-over match between Namibia and Karnataka is underway at Windhoek. This is the 3rd match of the series, which is currently tied 1-1. Karnataka won the toss and asked Namibia to bat first. Namibia managed a total of only 226, before they were bowled out. Zane Green made an unbeaten 65 for Namibia, while Bernard Scholtz made 59. The partnership between these two helped Namibia to recover from a position of 92/7 to 226. For Karnataka, Shubhang Hegde picked up 3 wickets, while Vijaykumar Vyshak the IPL sensation picked up two.

Obviously when 4 seamers are included, there is only place for one spin-bowling allrounder in the playing XI. And it was between Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel and Ravichandran Ashwin. And here Jadeja got the preference because he is the better batsmen out of these three. In case of Axar and Ashwin, there is a generalization that they are more suitable for subcontinental conditions. And during the recently concluded Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Jadeja picked up wickets at crucial intervals and proved to be a better bowler than any of the other two. 

India has the best players in cricket, for all the three formats. And despite all this, they have been unable to win a major ICC championship for the last 10 years. Only reason I can think about is the deficiencies in captaincy and coaching. The combination of Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri was beneficial for these two guys, but overall it was disastrous for the Indian team. And Rohit is just a clone of Virat. His captaincy skills are similar and only difference is that he behaves a bit more human-like compared to Kohli who behaves like a monkey on field.

Well.. I don't agree with that. If there is free market, then the tier-2 player salaries are going to increase more than the top players. As of now, not enough purse is left after the franchises purchase their top players. This will change if the free market strategy is followed. Anyway, this will not happen until there is a major revamp of the Indian Premier League, which I am not expecting for the next 10-15 years. The current purse seems too low to compensate all the players adequately. Only around 10% to 15% of the IPL salaries are currently being spent on player salaries, which is very low when compared to other leagues. The media rights revenues have gone up steeply over the years. But player salaries have not witnessed any such raise.

This happens with all of the inexperienced teams. Afghanistan had a big win in their first match. They started so well. But then they lost the second ODI and now they are going to lose their third ODI as well. There is no excuse to their performance, although supporters might claim that their performance is rusty since they were not playing international cricket for so long. But then, at least half a dozen Afghan players were part of the recently concluded IPL season. Many of them performed exceptionally well and it is ironic that the same players are underperforming now.

Neither Kohli nor Rohit can lead the Indian team to a victory in any of the ICC tournaments. I would rather prefer someone young as well as composed, such as Shreyas Iyer or Rishabh Pant (provided they are free from injury). Even Shubman Gill is a good option. Anyway, today the WTC finals will get going. Another golden opportunity for the Indian team to get their hands on a major ICC trophy. But what will happen in case there is rain interruption? In that case both the teams will be sharing the trophy and that will take some excitement out of it.

LOL.. I don't agree with the argument that Twitter lost billions. The share price has gone down, but that doesn't count unless the equities are sold. And regarding the fact that advertisers have gone to other platforms, it was somewhat expected. When left wing extremists such as Vijaya Gadde and Yoel Roth were in charge, they converted the platform to a place where Islamist lunatics like Mahatir Mohammad would make open genocidal threats. And they banned every account even remotely right-wing. Elon restored freedom of speech and it is natural that the left-wing doesn't like him a lot.

It is not just football. Ever since Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud became the ruler of Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom has been taking serious steps in order to make that country a global sports hub. Saudi Professional League is obviously one of their top priorities, given the fact that football is the most popular sport within KSA, as well as at global level. They are also making massive investments in other sports, such as golf, cricket and boxing. And in the end, it is the players who are going to benefit from it. Ronaldo's contract with Al Nassr was worth manytimes his contract with ManUtd (£3,400,000 per week vs £385,000 per week). Same with Messi as well (€8,333,333 per week vs £750,000 per week).

LOL.. are you claiming that CSK doesn't have any quality players? That is factually incorrect. Obviously they had a mix of young and old in their team, but it would be wrong to say that they are without star players. Ajinkya Rahane and Ravindra Jadeja are regular Indian players, while among the overseas contingent they had players such as Devon Conway, Moeen Ali, Ben Stokes, Mitchell Santner and Maheesh Theekshana, who are some of the best T20 players in the world. Captaincy obviously helped, but then their players also contributed in a big way.

LOL.. it is easy to see how banks are generating income. I have a plot loan with one of the banks. When I initially took the loan, the interest rate was 6.6% per year. That was one and half years ago. Now the interest rate stands at 9.3% per year. On the other hand, I have term deposits with another bank, and the interest rate has remained unchanged at 5.5% per year (we need to pay tax on this interest income as well). When they are taking money from us at 5.5% and then giving out the same money at 9.3%, how can they end up in a loss? My only question is where all these profits are going.