Since the gate collection amounts for a smaller proportion when compared to the other franchise leagues, the BCCI may be aiming for conducting the matches behind closed doors (i.e without any crowd attendance). But then, who will guarantee for the health of the players, match officials, workers at the stadium.etc?

In one of my earlier posts, I had supported Australia going ahead with the preparations for the T20 World Cup. But that was just because the pandemic situation in Australia is under complete control. On average, they have 10-20 new cases per day, compared to 4,000-5,000 in India.

The devil is in the details, unfortunately. I am a resident of India, and I am very knowledgeable about the situation here. The supreme court has removed a blanket ban on using bank accounts for cryptocurrency trading. But that doesn't make cryptocurrency trading 100% legal in India. Traders still face a lot of restriction from the authorities, and a lot of the activity is till in the "grey zone".

Please enlighten me. An effective vaccine against COVID 19 is at least 12 to 18 months away. So is the OP suggesting to cancel whatever sports events that are scheduled for this year and the next year? We need to accept the reality. COVD 19 will be here for at least a few more years. What we need to do is to manage our own daily routine accordingly. Staying at home for the next 18 months may not be practical for most of us.

I don't know how truthful this accusation is. But to tell the truth, this is something that I feared for a long time. When I first read about the acquisition of Coinmarketcap by Binance, this was one of the things that came to my mind. Binance should have never made this acquisition. We lost an independent website, which was useful for all types of cryptocurrency investors. I guess now we'll be forced to rely upon sites such as CoinGecko and Live Coin Watch.

This is a very interesting stat. If these figures are true, then it is clear that on the contrary to the argument, most of the nations are prioritizing test cricket. For example, England played 60 days of test cricket when compared to 22 days of ODI cricket. This is an amazing statistic. I would rather ask the major boards to prioritize ODI and T20 formats instead of test, as the revenues are higher with the shorter formats.

I have previously made numerous posts on this subject. The major vulnerability with XRP is that it is one of the most centralized cryptocurrencies currently in circulation. Somewhere between 80% and 90% of all the XRP in existence is owned by a handful of promoters. And that is the risk factor while investing in XRP. There is always a chance that some of these promoters may dump their coins, which can crash the prices of this crypto.

When the polls get skewed, it is not a good thing. But we don't need to concentrate on the negative aspect. There can be no denying to the fact that cricket has become popular in some of the non-traditional countries due to immigration from South Asia (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh). The negative here is that they have failed to attract locals to get interested in the sport. But who knows? The situation may change in the near future.

We already had a sharp drop a few months back. The prices declined by more than 60% (from $10,100 to $4,100) between mid-February and mid-March. But then, the exchange rates recovered to the previous levels thanks to the hype surrounding the block reward halving. If we look at the longer picture, the current prices are much higher when compared to the levels we had for most of 2018 and the first half of 2019.

The discussion is alive here, but for die-hard cricket fans like me, life has become unbearable. I used to watch multiple live cricket matches every day. However, the last time I watched a live match was more than two months back. You may find it unbelievable, but I am getting depressed as a result of this. Other cricket fans are finding refuge in watching highlights of the past matches and playing virtual cricket online. But I am not a big fan of these options.

The market is not regulated and none of the deposits are insured. At this point, it is foolish to "trust" any of the cryptocurrency exchanges, no matter how much their trade volume is. This mistake was done by cryptocurrency users in 2014, when they trusted Mt Gox, and again in 2019 with Cryptopia. Daily turnover is not a good metric for protection against scams and hacks.

^^^^ Infection rates skyrocketed in countries such as Italy and Spain, when they partially relaxed the lockdown. If the same happens in the United States as well, then Trump would be in big trouble. Already the state of New York has one of the highest infection rates in the world (17,653 cases per million, when compared to 5,661 for Spain and 3,610 for Italy). Trump may or may not get infected with COVID. But his approval ratings are going to fall steeply in the coming months if the situation doesn't improve.

Those presidents who didn't take the virus seriously are responsible for thousands of additional deaths. I am not just talking about Trump. There are at least a dozen others, including Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico and Stefan Löfven of Sweden.

With every passing day, I am getting more skeptical about the altcoins. The Bitcoin dominance has increased from 63% to 67% during the past couple of months. And with the block reward halving just around the corner, this share should continue to increase for the next 2-3 months at least. With the exchange rates showing hardly any movement, I would expect the altcoin prices to drop in the immediate aftermath of the halving event.

The situation in India is very much different from what they have in South Korea. There, the pandemic has peaked, and on average they are having 5-10 new cases per day. Here in India, the peak is yet to be reached and we have around 4,000 new cases per day. Under these circumstances, it will be suicidal to stage the IPL anytime during the next 2-3 months. As I mentioned earlier, the best option is to cancel this year's tournament.

This is a good suggestion. Around 50% of the playing XI can be comprised of expats, and the remaining 50% can be natives. At least this would make sure that the locals may get interested in the sports. Right now this loophole is being misused very frequently. For example, UAE is fielding retired international players from India and Pakistan (on top of the domestic players), while USA is including retired international players such as Rusty Theron and Hayden Walsh Jr. in their squad.

^^^^ 3 match series each for QF, SF and the final? That would mean that the teams need to play 9 matches each. If this format is adopted, then the tournament can easily stretch for 4-5 months. And I don't think that we have that much gap available in the international cricket calendar. ICC as well as the individual boards will be against this idea, as the revenues will be very low.

My favorite celebration is not listed here. During the 2007 World Cup, the Irish players (especially the bowlers Trent Johnston and Dave Langford-Smith) had a strange way of celebrating. It was called "the chicken dance". I still remember Johnston's celebration, when he took the wicket of Virender Sehwag during the WC match that was played at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

That's great news. So there is still a chance that the World Cup would proceed as planned. Not just Australia, but New Zealand also managed to contain the infection levels. Australia is witnessing just 10-20 new cases per day, while for New Zealand the figure is 1-2 per day. And this comes at a time when the pandemic is spreading rapidly in most of the Southern Hemisphere countries.

OP hasn't given any details about the IEO. And it can be very difficult to assume, because Latoken is one of the larger exchanges, and a number of different IEOs are online right now with them. The potential of the IEO depends upon the project and not upon the exchange where it is listed. The exchange can help it with exposure, but ultimately if the idea is not very good then the investors may skip the IEO.

I would support this move. But the ICC may not be comfortable with it, because it can have a huge negative impact on two of their crucial markets - USA and UAE. The ICC consider the US as one of the potential markets. And UAE is very important because of the support the Emirates board gives to the ICC. If the ICC makes it mandatory to have citizens, then the US may be able to field a playing XI, albeit below strength. But I am not sure whether the UAE can manage a playing XI or not. In recorded history, Kuwait is the only GCC nation which has ever fielded a team entirely comprised of citizens (during 2014 Asian Games, the team was captained by 58-year old Mahmoud Bastaki).

And one argument the Emirates Cricket board puts forward is that it is easier for South Africans and some of the other expats to get the citizenship of European nations. For example, former South African player Roelof van der Merwe managed to get a Dutch passport (because his grand-father was born in Netherlands). He now represents Netherlands. The same is not possible with UAE and the other GCC nations, because they don't give citizenship for immigrants.

Well.. let me explain in detail.

First there will be a qualifier tournament, in which 8 teams will take part (ICC Test ranking teams 9 to 12, and top 4 Associate sides from the ICC ODI rankings).

So there will be Pakistan, West Indies, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Ireland, Netherlands and Oman playing this qualifying tournament. This tournament will have the same format as the Test World Cup and from this qualifying tournament, the top 2 teams would qualify for the main tournament.

Now let's come to the Test World Cup. There will be 8 teams (Top 6 test sides and two qualifiers).

Let's assume these are the teams: Australia, India, New Zealand, England, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Pakistan and West Indies. Total of 8 teams.

In the first round the 1st ranked team will take on 8th ranked team, 2nd ranked team will take on the 7th, and so on..

So this is the schedule for the first week:

AUS vs WI
NZ vs PAK
IND vs SA
ENG vs SL

Let's say.. Australia, NZ, India and ENG won the test matches and proceeded to the next phase.

Second phase will take place after 5 days of rest. There are 4 teams and the schedule will be like this:

AUS vs IND, NZ vs ENG

Two teams will proceed to the finals. And the finals will be played after 5 days of rest. So the entire tournament is completed within 25 days.

I am not sure about the venue. Given the revenues that can be generated, India seems to be a good option.