Do they have enough batsmen? I just hope that they will not go to the first test with 5 batsmen in the playing XI, just like what they did during the T20I series against Sri Lanka. Since Mayank is injured, either Gill or Shaw will open alongside Rohit. I don't like either of them, as I can't see any maturity with these players. Both have been given enough chances, but they have wasted them. I would have preferred Devdutt Padikkal, but he doesn't seems to have powerful backers within the selection panel.

Great Britain was the surprise package last time, and they narrowly managed to defeat China. But this time, both the US and UK are doing poorly. It may be due to the COVID pandemic, or may be due to the different weather conditions. Overall, the European and American teams have performed badly this time. And this includes a few other teams, such as Russia, France, Germany and Canada. On the other hand, Asian teams have performed better than what was expected from them (China, Japan, Australia, South Korea.etc). 

The competition should have been paused as soon as the rain started. But they went on with it. And it not just happened with discuss throw, but with other items in athletics as well. I saw 400m hurdles, where almost everyone struggled to stay balanced. Normal 400m is OK under rainy conditions, but with hurdles, it get really hard. Don't they have rules regarding rain interruption? It is not fair, as some of the players (in discuss) got an opportunity to complete their rotation under rain-free conditions, while the others had to participate under rains.

Not surprised to learn about Bezant. 2018 was a horrible year for the ICOs, after a couple of extremely good ones in 2016 and 2017. And the situation has remained like that ever since. The success rate of the ICOs remain at less than 5%, ever since the great bust in 2018. Now among the coins you had listed, ADA is one coin that has given spectacular returns during the last 12 months. I just hope that you purchased it before the rally started. And I don't have a good opinion about the NFTs. I don't think that it is a very intelligent move to invest in them.

If you remember, in mid-2017 Ethereum came really close to toppling Bitcoin from the no.1 position. At one point, less than 2% in market dominance separated both the coins. But that was the closest any altcoin ever came in challenging the Bitcoin dominance. After that, at no point any of the altcoins could even manage 50% of the market cap of Bitcoin. Thousands of new coins and tokens got listed since 2017, and the situation hasn't changed. And I don't think that it will happen in the near future. Because there is limited room for the new projects, since the cryptocurrency sector is already saturated.

If you want to go for a 100% green coin, then the only option is to go for a coin that is 100% premined (similar to Ripple). But then, such coins will be obviously having their own disadvantages. Look at the ownership structure of XRP and you will understand. And also, a 100% premine doesn't mean that zero electricity is needed to maintain the network in good shape. The nodes need to be running all the time, or else the transactions will fail. My opinion on this is that it is not our responsibility to go green. We are not electricity producers and it is the duty of those who produce electricity to consider greener sources.

That may be because the sports infrastructure is improving in other countries. One or two decades ago, a handful of developed countries used to dominate the medals table. That has changed now. Developing nations such as Brazil, Kosovo, Ecuador and Cuba are already in the medals table. It was China which first showed that Olympics is not a monopoly of the developed nations. And look where they are right now. Only the former-USSR group of nations have gone down during the last few years, in terms of medal winning capability. 

I agree with the first three phases, but not with the last one. They will follow the example of Binance. After coming up with BNB and BUSD, did they removed ETH, BTC or USDT? They will allow the competitor coins as well, but those using their own token/coin will have an advantage in terms of low fees and cashback benefits. And even if they come up with Amazoncoin (or some other coin), it will be wrong to classify BTC as it's competitor. Because right now all the altcoins (including BNB and ETH) are dependent on Bitcoin and they haven't yet reached a stage where they could challenge Bitcoin.

When I purchased Bitcoin for the first time (January 2017), it was extremely difficult to do that. None of the mainstream exchanges would accept fiat deposits from my country. After a few days searching about it, I was finally able to purchase BTC using one of the P2P platforms. But times have changed. Now there are multiple cryptocurrency exchanges that are based in my country and it is quite easy to link the bank accounts and make direct purchases. And even in P2P platforms, the number of traders have increased by a lot.

I wasn't surprised by the victory by the men's team. But the performance by the women's team was very surprising, as they don't even rank among the top 10. They managed to beat one of the strongest sides in women's hockey (Australia). A medal is not yet certain, but they need to win just one out of the two matches to come back with a medal. Things looking slightly better for India, with two medals already in it's kitty (silver in weightlifting by Saikhom Mirabai Chanu and bronze in badminton by PV Sindhu).

Being an Indian, I can't agree with your POV. This is a deliberate provocation from the PCB. Why they are not organizing any tournament in their provinces that are not in dispute? I am talking about Sindh, West Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Why all of a sudden they are organizing a franchise league in the sparsely populated Kashmir region, where not even 2% of the Pakistani population resides? Ideally they should target the more populous provinces such as Punjab and Sindh, right? I am in favor of distancing sports from politics. But here the provocation came from Pakistani side.

The first organized cricket league starts in the United States this week. The tournament is known as Toyota Minor League Cricket Championship, and a total of 27 teams (divided in to 4 regional groups) will be taking part. The Minor League will act as a feeder tournament for the Major League (which is scheduled to start by 2022). A total of 6 teams will be participating in the Major League. USACA has recruited a number of former international players, including Corey Anderson, Sami Aslam, Smit Patel, Dane Piedt and Justin Dill.   

https://emergingcricket.com/news/minor-league-cricket-opening-day-watch/
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/usa-cricket-stepping-up-foreign-recruitment-to-live-up-to-odi-status-1240859

It is generating a lot of hype within England, but with a limited number of overseas players, the viewership in other countries will be low. Even some of the star players of England (Ben Stokes, James Anderson, Stuart Broad.etc) are not taking part in the hundred. But one thing that I liked is that they gave equal importance for both the men's and women's tournaments. The same franchise have both the men's and women's teams and the format is same for both the tournaments. This is something we can never expect from the BCCI.

Very surprising results from the 100m race. No one thought that  Marcell Jacobs would win the gold medal. He was born in the city of El Paso (United States) and could represent Italy because his mother is an Italian citizen (father is US citizen). Had he opted to represent the United States, then in all probability he wouldn't have got a slot in the Olympic squad. This sums up the disappointing performance by the United States in track and field items so far. China is now the leader with 24 golds and they have increased their gap with US and Japan.

Well.. it is obvious. The Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) has been engaged with a turbulent relationship with most of its players, ever since a section of them refused to tour Pakistan in 2019. The players claimed that Pakistan was not safe enough to visit, but the board disagreed with their views. The relations have remained tense ever since, and this might have contributed to the high-handedness in dealing with the disciplinary breach.

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Both the BCCI and SLC have refused to launch an investigation in to how Krunal got infected. So we may never know the exact reason. We can only consider several possibilities, which may or may not be true.

It is not the government, but the cricket board (SLCB in this case, and BCCI during the IPL), which sets up bio-bubbles. So the losses will be incurred by them. That doesn't mean that the government will not lose any revenue. The tax revenue will be lost in case a tournament is called off. The decision by the BCCI to move remainder of the IPL to UAE cost the Indian government tens of millions of USD in tax revenue. At this time, both the boards and the players need to understand that just one mistake from their part can result in huge losses for everyone.

It was exceptional performance from Hafeez, but the other bowlers were very ordinary. Hafeez conceded just 6 runs in 4 overs (including one maiden), and without him Pakistan would have easily lost the match. Their pace bowlers were very wayward. Shaheen Shah Afridi conceded 44 from his 4 overs, and Hasan Ali conceded 32. Mohammad Wasim and Usman Qadir also went for more than 10 runs per over. The only bowler who gave some sort of support for Hafeez was Shadab Khan. And I need to congratulate the Pakistan captain (Babar Azam) as well, for his decision to open bowling with Hafeez. 

Given what he did with Bitcoin, Doge users should be more cautious with Elon Musk. The truth is that, with his millions of followers Elon can easily launch his own token or coin, and make it rank among the top-25 cryptos in the Coinmarketcap list. If shitcoins such as Dogecoin and Ripple can rank in the top-10, then why not a coin that is supported by Elon? And sooner or later, he is going to do that. Because his returns will be limited in case he continues to support a coin such as Doge, which is in existence since 2013. It is more profitable for him to come up with his own coin.

The most exciting event in Olympics 2021 is over. Men's 100m finals is now decided, with Marcell Jacobs of Italy surprisingly winning the gold medal. Another disappointment for the United States in athletics, as Fred Kerley came second at 9.84. Overall, Jacobs improved the margin by 0.01 seconds (back in 2016, Usain Bolt won the gold at 9.81 seconds and Justin Gatlin came second with 9.89). I don't know what happened to Yohan Blake. He couldn't even qualify for the finals (10.14 seconds in semi-finals).

The Pandya brothers are someone with good political connections. A few weeks ago, Deepak Hooda announced that he was quitting the Baroda team. During the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament, he had a well publicized spat with Krunal (who was captaining the Baroda side). Hooda complained to the Baroda management, but they stood with Krunal. The BCCI is even refusing to allow an investigation to find out how Krunal got infected inside the bio-bubble. Their reaction would have been different, if it was some lesser known guy, such as Gaikwad or Rana.