The next double may come sooner than you would expect. With every passing year, bowlers are losing their relevance in international cricket. The boundaries are getting shorter and even grounds such as WACA and Kingsmead (which once used to terrorize the batsmen) have become very flat now. When Rohit got his double back then (in 2014 against Sri Lanka), it was somewhat unimaginable. But that is no longer the case now. Even women players such as Amelia Kerr have achieved this feat.

LOL... I wish it was that simple.

The IT guys are tracking each and every activity in the laptop (which is provided by the organization). They have all the details, such as for how long the laptop is in idle mode, which are the websites we are visiting and for how long we are using each of the apps. Usually they don't create any issues. But when some data breach is noticed, they will publish the logs for the past 30 days and we need to be careful about it.

Here in India, most of the managers are shitheads and they don't respect the privacy of those who work with them. They should not bother someone if he is completing the tasks assigned to him on time... but that is not the case. I haven't faced much trouble recently, as my manager is a tolerable guy. But some of my friends are having a horrible time with their work from home setup.

Have to disagree. I first started using internet in 2004. It has been 16 years and I have seen a lot during this duration. Back then, I was having a 32 KBps connection and it would take ages to open a web page. Now I am using a 2MBps connection. Back then, I used to pay around $25 per month for this 32 KBPS connection, and there was an upper limit of 500 MB of data transfer per month (yes.. you heard it right. I can use a maximum of 500 MB data, that is less than 0.5 GB). Now I am paying around $3 per month for my 4G connection, which is having a speed of 2MBPS and data limit of 1.5 GB per day.

And in 2004, I was using Norton antivirus, which cost me $10 for one year. Now I am using Kasper anti-virus, which costs me $20 for three years (i.e $6.7 per year). I have free VPN (provided by Kasper) up to 300 MB data per day. And I have free cloud storage from Google Drive.

Now please educate me on how the stuff got costlier.

Well.. initial trigger was not the COVID 19 outbreak.

In March, talks for supply cuts between OPEC (led by Saudi Arabia) and Russia failed and both the sides announced that they'll be lifting the upper limits for oil production and will pump as much crude as they can. Saudi Arabia in particular claimed that they will increase the production by at least 2 million barrels per day. This caused the initial slump.

During the last week of March, lockdowns were imposed in many countries and this resulted in a sharp drop in crude oil demand. For example, the demand from Italy went down by 85%. And obviously, the crude oil prices fell like a stone.

I am starting to have a feeling that Satoshi is no longer alive. His stash is worth a few billion USD now. If he was alive, then he could have claimed it. Even if he has lost his private key, there are multiple alternate options available for him to prove that he is the creator of Bitcoin. It has been 11 years since he first mined Bitcoin. For almost 10 years now, we haven't heard anything from him. I guess he is no longer alive.. but that said, I don't think that either Craig Wright, or Dave Kleiman has anything to do with Satoshi.

See the language used in the article. It says Sanders "ended his presidential campaign". That means that he is not going to run as an independent against Biden/Trump (so whatever remote possibility we had for such a scenario, is now reduced to zero).

He hasn't endorsed Biden, but that was expected. One thing to notice here is that at least on the outside, it looks as if there is no bad blood between Biden and Sanders (which is diametrically opposite to the scenario we had in 2016). So I guess most of those Sanders supporters who abstained or voted Jill Stein in 2016, will be voting for Biden this time.

That said, I would be closely following both Biden and Sanders. Will Biden shift to the left, to attract Sanders followers? Or will he swing further to the center, to attract the moderate vote? And regarding Sanders, I want to see his reaction in the coming weeks. Will he remain out of media limelight? Or will he attack either Trump or Biden (or both)?

There is no doubt that there will be full capacity crowd for the playoff matches. But to build the momentum, it takes time. The popularity of PSL soared after the initial 4-5 matches. The interest came in from across the globe once it was known that the matches were of very high quality. This can be seen, if you check the TRP for the league matches. For the first few matches, the TRP was low. The momentum is lost now and it will take a lot of effort to bring it back to the previous levels. The Pakistani fans may still give their 100%, but I am not that sure about the global audience (I am someone who watched the majority of the matches LIVE on DSPORT).

Did anyone noticed that the Brent Crude is remaining above $30 per barrel for the past few days? A week ago, many of the analysts were predicting that it will fall below the $20 per barrel level. The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is also staying above $25 per barrel. And this presents a very tricky situation. The vast majority of the shale oil companies in the United States will remain profitable at $20-25 levels. So if the prices remain at this level, then the primary aim of Saudi Arabia (the destruction of American shale oil business) may not be achieved.

I am not a believer of these conspiracy theories regarding the COVID 19 outbreak. IMO, none of the governments would sacrifice thousands of their own citizens, no matter what they may gain in the future. Chinese citizens went through hell during lockdown (which lasted 11 weeks in Wuhan). Many were starving and tens of thousands died due to lack of access to medical care. Now please don't tell me that the government planned all this in advance.

^^^ Ben Dunk was in superb form for the Qalandars (before the virus outbreak caused the postponement of the playoff phase) and I am sure that he has caught the attention of the Australian selectors. And I would be looking forward to the selectors dropping some of the players in the middle-order. Australia is having an excellent top order (Warner, Finch, Smith.etc), but they are not winning matches because of their weak middle order. Dunk may strengthen this department if he is selected.

Regarding Tom Banton, he has already played a few ODIs and T20s for England. But I am not sure whether he'll make the cut for the T20 world cup or not. Lewis Gregory was somewhat ordinary during PSL 2020. So I wouldn't fancy many chances for him.

I am an Indian resident and I need to ask everyone to hold your horses regarding the news about Bitcoin in India. The establishment remains openly hostile to Bitcoin or any other form of cryptocurrency. It is extremely difficult to get a license to operate a business, in case it is even remotely related to cryptocurrency. And the income tax authorities are always harassing the Bitcoin users, irrespective of their trade volume and net worth. 

I am not going to support this move. For the national team, it is OK. For domestic teams the team selection is not being done in a transparent manner and there is a lot of bias and nepotism. So in the end we'll be having sub-standard players getting the contract (at the expense of the good players) and they may play only a handful of matches during the entire season. I would rather go for the current system, where the salary is decided based on the number of matches played.

In Wuhan, they had a very strict lockdown for 11 weeks (two and half months). So the bare minimum is 2.5-3 months. But we also need to remember that the crisis peaks in one country and then moves to the next one. First it was China, then it was South Korea and Iran before moving on to the European Union. It has peaked in Italy and Spain, but the situation looks hopeless in France/UK/Sweden. And during the past few days, huge number of new cases are being reported from the United States.

4 teams remain for the playoffs: Multan Sultans-Peshawar Zalmi and Karachi Kings-Lahore Qalanders.

Checking by team-to-team basis, for the Lahore Qalandars there is a higher risk since some of their players such as Ben Dunk and Seekkuge Prasanna may be included in the squads for the T20 world cup. The same can be said about Peshawar Zalmi, regarding Tom Banton/Lewis Gregory/Carlos Brathwaite. The other two teams should be OK.

BTW, are you sure about Moeen Ali? I saw him playing for England in T20 just one month ago.


It's true. It will have an impact on the crowd response.

In India, today is the 15th day of lockdown (out of a total of 21 days). Most of us are surviving.. but there are people who are staying alone in distant places away from their friends and relatives. They are in trouble due to lack of supplies and care. Surprisingly, in the rural areas conditions seems better. There is no shortage of food and people are helping each other. But it should be remembered that we are yet to face the full-fledged outbreak. As of now, the death toll remains less than 200.

A number of cricket players in India have contributed to the PM Cares (Relief fund established by the Prime Minister to fight against COVID 19). Many have publicized their contributions, but Virat Kohli displayed extra-ordinary selflessness by refusing to specify the amount which he donated (obviously he donated more than anyone else in the team). The BCCI has donated Rs. 51 crore (almost $7 million). Even the fielding coach (R Sridhar) has donated a significant amount. My only complaint is that the highest paid member of the Indian team, Ravi Shastri (fondly known as "damaadji" in India) hasn't donated a penny yet.

BTW, here we have Danish Kaneria undertaking relief work all by himself in Karachi:

I am not sure about the other countries, but here in India we are certainly going to face huge issues even if this outbreak is contained within the next 1-2 months. Tens of millions of migrant workers have returned to their villages (including some who are taking the Coronavirus to these remote locations) and these people are literally starving without any money or food. Almost everyone who was earlier employed in the tourism and food industry is now without a job. This crisis may be over in a few months, but the hole it left in our pocket may take may years to repair.

I am not sure how that is going to help. Everyone knows that the CMC figures have a certain degree of unreliability associated with them, due to the inflated trade volumes being reported from many of the smaller and medium-sized exchanges. But CMC was doing a pretty good job to remove the inaccuracy, when they started showing the "adjusted volume". Now how can we rely CMC's figures for Binance, and that for it's competing exchanges?

Stablecoins doesn't have any independent existence as such. They are only used in those countries, where it is illegal to use fiat currency to trade crypto. And most of these stablecoins doesn't have much volumes outside the exchanges. They are being used as an intermediary, before the trader can convert his coins to fiat cash (or vice versa). Once the restrictions on the usage of fiat currency is lifted, the stablecoins may become obsolete.

Trump is the favorite?

During the past 6 months, none of the national polls have shown a lead for Trump. All of them have shown Democrat candidates leading by anywhere from 5 to 10 points.

But then the US elections are a bit complex. It's not the popular vote, but the electoral vote which counts. And Trump do have a fair chance in some of the "battleground" states, such as Florida (29 electoral votes) and Ohio (18 electoral votes).

Florida is going to be the most crucial state. If Trump loses that state, then the elections are over for him.