In case of CAR at least they didn't replaced their forex reserves with cryptocurrency. El Salvador regime did that and  suffered huge losses as a result of that. Despite the announcement to make Bitcoin as legal tender in Central African Republic, the adoption never took off in a big way. Unlike the case with El Salvador, the population in CAR has limited access to mobile internet. Also the government has been very slow in finalizing the formalities. Here is a tweet from President Faustin-Archange Touadera, regarding the draft cryptocurrency bill which is yet to be tabled:

https://twitter.com/FA_Touadera/status/1616430057580367875

The approach from CAR is more cautious, while El Salvador was overly aggressive.

Fall of Twitter? LOL.. Which fall you guys are talking about? I am a regular user of Twitter, and I haven't noticed any large decline in the popularity in this platform. A few months back, Elon was complaining that some of the large advertisers had pulled out, after he purchased the platform. But many of them seems to have returned. And regarding the staff layoffs, it is not just Twitter. Amazon and Google have laid off far more employees when compared to Twitter. And the layoffs happened because these tech firms were overstaffed.

None of the younger players are performing well at this point. If you take out the senior players such as Balbirnie and Stirling, then nothing is left in their bating lineup. The two youngsters - Lorcan Tucker and Harry Tector, showed a lot of promise last year, but during this tour their performance has remained below par. The most promising young player has been Curtis Campher. But he has also failed to realize his potential in full. At times, he contributed either with the bat or with the ball, but consistency was sorely lacking in his game.

Their performance in T20 format is good, because a lot of the players take part in the Pakistan Super League and other franchise T20 leagues around the world. But domestic 4-day cricket is still not as good as that in England or Australia. And this is impacting their performance in the test format. Also, till now they haven't got a quality spinner who is suitable for test format. Abrar Ahmed is showing some promise, but he is still a few years away from performing consistently at the top level. There are a few others in the reserves as well, but right now spin bowling is a big headache for Pakistan.

This is the most idiotic argument that I have ever came across in this forum. United Arab Emirates, Oman and Saudi Arabia have been playing with Indian and Pakistani players since time immemorial. And how did that helped to grow the sport in that region? For the last two decades, I haven't seen a single Arab in any of these teams (before that there were a few, such as Sultan Zarawani and Saeed-Al-Saffar). If teams need to disband, then let it be. Why there should be a team from UAE, when none of the natives are interested in cricket?

This is the issue when teams are dependent on one or two players. We have Belgium being dependent on Lukaku and Norway being dependent on Håland. And until very recently, Portugal was a one-man army led by Cristiano Ronaldo. In case of Wales, also it was the same thing. Gareth Bale is a legend, and he retired when he was still at his peak. Played more than 100 international matches for Wales, scoring a total of 41 goals. But he decided that it was time to move on, and currently he is focusing on Major League Soccer (MLS), where he represents the Los Angeles FC.

Don't have much hope for Ireland. So far their performance has been disastrous. They are still reeling from the retirement of players such as William Porterfield, Kevin O'Brien, Boyd Rankin and Tim Murtagh. The younger players still haven't reached a level where they can fill the vacuum left by these players. The case of Ireland quite weird. Actually their performance has gone down ever since they received the test status. On the other hand, the performance of Afghanistan has improved since then (and both the teams were awarded the full member status at the same time).

LOL... finally.. Here comes the indictment. And he deserved every bit of it. Donald Trump was indicted on charges that he paid hush money to one of the porn stars (Stormy Daniels), and the payment was made just before the 2016 POTUS elections. Trump allegedly had sex with Daniels during his stay at Lake Tahoe in 2006, but denied it in front of media. The indictment proceedings were put in to action by Alvin Leonard Bragg Jr., who happens to be the New York County District Attorney (the first African American elected to that office). So as far as I know, Trump is ineligible to run for 2024 POTUS elections.

Today is one of the most crucial days as far the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup Super League is concerned. Sri Lanka are playing their last match in the league, against New Zealand. If they win this match, then they will end up with 91 points. But the problem for them is that South Africa has 78 points and they have two matches remaining against Netherlands. So in case they win both these matches, then they will end up with 98 points and qualify ahead of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka won the toss today and elected to bat first. They are now at 7/0 after 1.2 overs.

LOL... Alcoholic beverages are readily available in most of the middle-eastern countries, including Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. The problem is not about any existing laws in Qatar. A lot of us were surprised when Qatar imposed a last minute ban on beer, despite assurances given to the FIFA and Budweiser (one of the sponsors of the tournament). And beer was made available for those holding the highest tier ticket. Banning beer was only part of the issue. The way they banned it was the main reason why there were so many complaints.

LOL.. at least the fans will be able to get beer during the 2026 world cup. And you are not completely correct when you claim that beer was totally banned during Qatar 2022. Those who had the top tier tickets ($25,000 or so per ticket) had the luxury of enjoying beer while watching matches live. Only the ordinary fans with lower tier tickets were denied from enjoying alcoholic beverages and beer. In 2026, there will be all sort of beverages available to the fans. Each of the three countries have their own signature brands of lager beer and other alcoholic beverages.

They might have won today, but there is no guarantee that they will finish among the top-2, so that they will gain direct entry to the 2023 Cricket World Cup Qualifier. So far the US has won 2 out of the 3 matches. Their two remaining matches are against Papua New Guinea and Jersey. These two are perhaps the weakest teams in the tournament, so they do have a very good chance of qualifying. Namibia also have 2 wins from 3 matches, and their remaining matches are against United Arab Emirates and Canada (relatively tougher opponents).

LOL... India performs well in the world cup? When did that happened? Do you know when was the last time when they won a trophy in one of the ICC tournaments? That was long back, when Mahendra Singh Dhoni was the captain. India under Kohli and Rohit has performed extremely poorly in all the ICC tournaments, including the T20 and ODI world cups. Anyway, this year the ODI world cup is being hosted by India and they should be the favorites to win the tournament. But a few days back, they lost the ODI series to Australia by a margin of 2-1.

The 2026 World Cup is scheduled to be held in a total of 16 stadiums (compared to 8 during Qatar 2022). And none of these 16 stadiums are entirely new. All of them are well established facilities and some have been in use for many decades. For example, the Estadio Azteca is having a capacity of close to 90,000 and it was build in 1966 (however, the stadium underwent extensive renovations in 1986, 1999, 2013 and 2016). And before the 2026 world cup as well, we can expect another round of comprehensive renovations.

I have heard about this (2015 FIFA corruption case). In the end, most of the parties involved were indicted and Sepp Blatter was removed from office. Most of the accused entered in to guilty pleas, and only a few (Juan Ángel Napout, Carlos Chávez Landivar.etc) decided to fight their case. But the thing to remember here is that FIFA took strong action against these people. If the same happened in cricket, the accused individuals will most probably continue to hold their office. Anyway, if I want to look for a sports body that has taken strong action against corruption, I understand that FIFA is not the perfect choice.

Well.. I am not sure... Sri Lanka still lost both their matches against New Zealand, and the second one by an innings. And remember that they lost against a very weak New Zealand side where two of the strike bowlers were missing (Trent Boult and Kyle Jamieson). You may assume that the pitch conditions were very hostile. But I watched these matches live on Amazon Prime Video and at no point, I got an idea that the pitches are offering a lot of support for the pace bowlers. I would say that the only ones who got assistance from the pitch are the batsmen.

In case of Saiteja Mukkamalla, he was born in Plainsboro, New Jersey. So he is a native born citizen of the United States. But the same can't be said about other players such as Shayan Jahangir, Monank Patel, Gajanand Singh and Jessy Singh. And in case of the United Arab Emirates, none of the players have citizenship of that country, and none of the them were born there. It was a very hard-fought win for the United States. They have two matches remaining, and probably need to win both the matches to qualify for the next round (2023 Cricket World Cup Qualifier).

IMO, advantage is with Gujarat Titans. They will have the home advantage as well, as the match is scheduled to take place at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad. Chennai Super Kings is one of the legacy teams.. and they have tons of experience with them, as they have players like Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Moeen Ali, Ravindra Jadeja and Ambati Rayudu. On the other hand, GT is a very young team, led by a very young captain. I checked the odds as well, and in all of the sportsbooks GT are given better odds when compared to CSK.

Well.. that is the point. Spain is having a very young team, and we can expect this sort of performance from them until they get settled down. But still I would say that Spain is not a dying team (unlike the case with some of the UEFA nations such as Belgium, Germany, Danmark and Netherlands). There is still a lot of talent available in Spain and most of them are of local origin (unlike some of the other countries who are overdependent on foreign-born players). Their next match is scheduled for 8th September, when they will take on Georgia.

What to say? DeSantis was the perfect GOP candidate for 2024. But if the party members don't approve him, then what is the point. Trump is a failed candidate. He lost the 2020 elections to Biden by a big margin. What the US need right now is some young blood, and not two 80 something guys fighting it out in the 2024 POTUS elections. BTW, why his support is going down like a falling knife? From what I can see, DeSantis has maintained a low profile during the last few months. His rapid decline in popularity is somewhat surprising.