If you are talking about the 2020–2023 ICC Cricket World Cup Super League, then I agree. Bangladesh has already qualified, by being in the top-8. They still have 3 matches remaining, and are having 130 points. No matter how much they try, the bottom ranking teams (West Indies, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Ireland) will be able to overtake Bangladesh. And let's remember that the remaining three matches for Bangladesh are scheduled to be against one of the weakest teams in the league (Ireland, May 2023).

We have the series between New Zealand and Sri Lanka starting in two weeks from now. Now this is extremely crucial. In order to have a chance to qualify for the ODI World Cup, Sri Lanka needs to win at least 2 out of the 3 matches (and hope that South Africa lose most of their remaining matches). But then, South Africa has two matches remaining against Netherlands. 

Japan, just like China, gives equal importance to Olympic sports. They are really good in Olympics, martial arts (esp. Judo) and wrestling. During the last Olympics (2021 Tokyo), Japan was 3rd in terms of medal tally and won a total of 58 medals including 27 golds. But when it comes to football, Asian teams in general are weak. But at least in case of Japan, we can say that they are a lot better than some of the more populous nations such as China, India and Indonesia. Only issue is that their quality has remained stagnant for sometime now.

Difficult to take a side in the confrontation between Will Smith and Chris Rock. But in the end, it was Will Smith who ended up on the losing side. Rock is someone who didn't had anything to lose and actually he provoked Smith for some cheap publicity. But overall, it left a bad taste for the viewers like me who were watching the event live. And I can see that Rock hasn't stopped his provocations. A few days back, he starred in a Netflix special, in which he mocked and made fun of Will Smith. He even ridiculed Smith's role in Emancipation.

I appreciate the change of heart. But if he wants to take care of his lack of form, then he needs to practice more. Either he can take part in the Indian domestic cricket, or try his luck with the Sheffield Shield or County Championship. He spends most of his time on domains other than cricket and then he gets disappointed when he fails to score runs. Also, it will be a good idea to start behaving properly (on and off the field). Picking up needless quarrels with opposition players can result in lack of focus while batting.

Kamala is too far to the left, to attract the votes from moderates. It is rare for someone from either of the extreme fringes of the political spectrum to get elected as the POTUS. Trump was an exception, and his chances in 2016 were boosted when Sanders supporters stayed at home. Hilary was also considered as someone on extreme-left. But that didn't worked out in 2020, when a "moderate" Biden defeated Trump by a handsome margin. If Kamala is up against DeSantis, then she has less than 10% chance of winning the election. And regarding Pence, I don't think that he is in the picture.

Quetta has been the disappointment of this season. Before yesterday's win against Karachi Kings, they had just 2 points from 7 matches (i.e one win). Karachi Kings are in a similar situation. So far they had just two wins from nine matches. The good news for Quetta is that Martin Guptill is finally back in form. Before the match against Kings, he had made a total of 166 runs in 6 matches. Take away the 117 he made against Kings, and his batting average would be in single digits. Now he has a decent average (252 runs from 7 matches).

There is a detailed article in Visual Capitalist, explaining the contribution by various countries to the Russian fossil fuel revenues. If you take the period from 24th February 2022 (when the war started) to 26th February 2023, it is clear that two of the NATO members (Germany and Turkey) contributed significantly to the Russian revenue inflow. Despite all the noise being made about imports by India, they are still at the 4th position, well behind both Germany and Turkey. China remains at the top, as they have been the largest trading partner for Russia historically.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/which-countries-are-buying-russian-fossil-fuels/

There is an interesting piece from the Wall Street Journal:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/russias-wagner-troops-exhaust-ukrainian-forces-in-bakhmut-b58e726c

It explains how Russia is using "expendable" troops (i.e prisoners fighting under the banner of PMC Wagner) to wage an attritional warfare against the best trained Ukrainian units within Bakhmut. For Russia, sending prisoners to die in the frontline is much more preferable to sending regular soldiers. On the other hand, Ukraine doesn't have any such option and they are wasting some of their best trained soldiers in this city. And despite all the rumors about Russia running out of ammo, the article states that it is the Ukrainians who are short of ammunition.

Al Hilal has played just 17 matches, while most of the other teams have played 19. I agree that they are far behind in points table (Al Nassr is at top with 46 points, while Al Hilal has just 33 points). Now I don't think that they will be able to top the table even if they perform really good in the remaining matches. On the other hand, Al Nassr seems to be in a very comfortable position and during the last 3 weeks, they have won against Al Taawoun, Damac and Al Batin with comfortable margins. But their next match is going to be tough, as they are up against Al Ittihad. 

It is not that he is waiting for someone else to get rid of Trump. He just don't want an open confrontation right now, especially after all that drama they had during the speaker election. And I don't agree with your assumption that DeSantis is an outsider among Republicans in other states. In that case there is no way that he gets 30% to 35% support in nation-wide opinion polls for the Republican primary. And I am sure that his support base will only expand further. He is the best choice to counter Trump and all the anti-Trump factions within the GOP will ultimately coalesce behind him in the coming months.

One thing that I have noticed so far in the PSL is that at least in the batting department, overseas players are dominating the show. Yesterday during the match between Karachi Kings and Quetta Gladiators, the top scorers for both the teams were Adam Rossington and Martin Guptill respectively. Out of the 10 top run scorers this season, 5 are overseas players. And Colin Munro and Sikandar Raza are the two players with the best strike rate. Bowling is more dominated by the locals, with Ihsanullah, Abbas Afridi and Shaheen Shah Afridi being the top wicket takers. 

Did anyone watched yesterday's match between Nepal and United Arab Emirates (ICC Men's Cricket World Cup League 2). It was an extremely crucial match for both the countries, and Nepal managed to win by a small margin. Initially it looked as if Nepal would struggle to get to a total of above 100, as they were at 68/5. But in the end Bhim Sharki with the help of the lower order batsmen took them to 229/8. UAE bowlers ran out of steam in the depth overs and struggled to get the tailenders out. In return, UAE was cruising comfortably. They were 94/1, 122/2 and 146/3 at different stages of the match. But unlike Nepal, their middle and lower order collapsed and in the end they got bundled out for just 187.

As I mentioned previously, this match was very crucial. Now Nepal has a one-point advantage over the UAE and both the teams have played 32 matches. 4 matches remain for both the teams (2 of them against each other, and 2 against Papua New Guinea). Who wins these matches will determine ICC fund allocation for the next 4 years.

BTW, I noticed something interesting yesterday. I was watching the match live on FanCode. The match was taking place at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, and there were close to 1,000 spectators. And despite the fact that the match was taking place in the UAE, I couldn't spot a single supporter of that team. All the spectators were Nepali. This shows the absurdity of creating a national team out of foreigners. No one supports such teams and the UAE players themselves may support India or Pakistan and may never bother about their own "national" team. This is such a shame.

So the voting will end by today. And we will get to know the results by next week. I will be happy if Everything Everywhere All at Once wins the Oscar for best film. This is a film that collected more than $100 million from the global box-office. So at least this year, we will have an agreement between the general public and the Oscar jury (i.e the 8,000 or so members of the Academy) for the choice of best picture. Will be an added sweetener if Michelle Yeoh ends up with the Oscar for best actress. And also, there is a good chance that Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert may win the award for best director.

BTW odds haven't changed. Everything Everywhere All at Once remains as the overwhelming favorite at 1.10 in Stake.com. All Quiet on the Western Front is at 11.00, while Fablemans has odds of 31.00.

^^^ I don't know who will win the 4th and final test match. But one thing is sure. The series has become alive after lop-sided matches during the first two tests. Australia will be having the momentum, after their huge 9-wicket victory at Indore. And the Indian curators will be confused. If they prepare a pitch that supports spin, then Australia have Nathan Lyon, Matthew Kuhnemann and Todd Murphy in their lineup and may trouble the Indian batsmen. If they prepare a flat track, then there is a good chance that the match will end up as a draw. And by some chance if they make the track pace-friendly, then Starc and Boland will destroy the Indians.

Just 4 matches have been completed and it is too early to predict who will qualify for the semi-finals. As things stand, Mumbai Indians have won all of their matches and are having 4 points. Royal Challengers Bangalore and Gujarat Giants on the other hand have lost all of their matches. During the first edition of the IPL (2008), it was underdogs Rajasthan Royals who lifted the trophy. Back then, three of the most favored teams - Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kolkata Knight Riders failed to enter the knockout phase. But this time, things seems to be different. Mumbai has a good chance to lift the trophy.

We have a tendency to give undue importance to demographics. The current world champions have a population of 45 million, while India and China, with a combined population of 2,800 million failed to even qualify for the FIFA World Cup. In football, it is quality that matters and not the quantity. There are countries such as United States and Saudi Arabia, which are populous as well as rich. But these countries are not considered as superpowers in football. Once again, it proves that population and money can help only up to a certain extent.

Japan has remained as one of the most rapidly ageing countries for the last 2-3 decades. Only very recently the birth rate in some of the other countries (such as South Korea and Taiwan) went down below the level of Japan. All that said, Japan is still a country with 125 million people (3x the population of Argentina). So why the Japanese team is so weak. One reason maybe that the local league is not that strong. But then Argentina also doesn't have a very good local league. Most of their players depend on the UEFA leagues, such as EPL, Serie A, La Liga and Ligue 1. 

My question is why there is a sudden change in heart, after abusing Hinduism for so long. But I agree. He is free to do whatever he want and no one is going to stop him. That said, it will be a good idea to stay away from giving advise on how to celebrate Hindu festivals and all that. If Virat minds his own business, then I am sure that the public will also extend the same policy for him. BTW, I am wondering why Vamika is missing from the temple visit. Virat and Anushka didn't brought her to the temple?

Can someone explain this to me?


After a decade of ridiculing Hinduism and actively encouraging to celebrate Christian festivals, why Virat Kohli is doing ghar vaapsi now? He doesn't look happy though (look at the last photo on lower right).

I am wondering what will be next. Maybe Hard-dick Pandya will acknowledge that Himanshu Pandya is his biological father and not some random Jamaican as he has been claiming till now? Or maybe Rohit Sharma will stop eating beef (at least publicly)... LOL.. the possibilities are endless.

The weakest zone without a doubt it South Asia. We have a bunch of countries that are all ranked below 100 as per FIFA. And the fun fact is that this zone has a population of 2 billion, and has one of the most rapid population growth rates for any part of the globe. In Asia, the football strongholds are the middle-eastern countries (including Iran) and East Asia (Japan and South Korea). Australia is more like an outlier which has shown enormous growth over the years. And then we have Central Asia (especially Uzbekistan) which has also shown significant improvement.

The one-sided nature of the first ever WPL match reminds me of the first IPL match, that occurred way back in 2008. Back then it was Brendon McCullum of the Kolkata Knight Riders, who came up with a massive score of 158 not out from 73 balls. KKR made 222/3 and in return, the Royal Challengers Bangalore were bowled out for 82 runs. Victory margin was 140 runs. Yesterday it was Harmanpreet Kaur in the place of McCullum. The victory margin was eerily similar, at 143 runs. The difference is that yesterday it was not a one-man show. Hayley Matthews and Amelia Kerr also contributed to Mumbai Indians batting.