Unless there is a miracle, the final match will be played between England and Australia. England was set a target of 165 by South Africa, but right now they have raced to 53/0 after 5 overs. Shabnim Ismail just got the wicket of Sophia Dunkley, but South Africa needs a couple of quick wickets just to stay in the game. England do have a very strong batting lineup, with Danni Wyatt and Alice Capsey at the crease and some very experienced players such as Heather Knight, Sophie Ecclestone and Nat Sciver-Brunt yet to come. 

Once the initial opening spell from Tim Southee and Matt Henry got completed, England was reeling at 21/3, with Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett and Ollie Pope back in the pavilion. Then Harry Brook joined Joe Root at the crease and all the hell broke loose. The same New Zealand seamers who were unplayable during the first session went for plenty in the next two sessions. And the pace at which Harry Brook scored his runs was unimaginable. Now he is just 16 runs away from his maiden test double century (playing his 6th test, and his highest score so far as 153).

I can't agree with your observations. French team had all sort of problems when they played during the last Euro Cup. And then the spat went out in public, as the parents of the players were fighting it out in the open. I don't know how much the situation has changed after that, but even during the Qatar edition of the world cup last year, I couldn't find a lot of improvement in team bonding and cohesion. There seems to be a lot of ego issues between the different players, and time and again it comes to the surface in a very ugly way.

Yesterday during the match between India and Australia, one of the Indian players was shouting expletives at her Australian counterpart when the latter got out. It was so disappointing. Kohli and his gang of monkeys have normalized goonish behavior on field. Now even the members of U-19 and women's teams are also behaving in the same way.

https://www.mensxp.com/sports/cricket/130014-woment20worldcup-shafali-verma-abuses-beth-mooney-video.html

If Shafali Verma wants to compete with Kohli, then she should do that by scoring runs. But what to say? The BCCI silently supports this ghoulish behavior and that is the reason why the players are getting more and more confident with such behavior.

WPL will surely change the face of Indian cricket. Normally I don't watch a lot of these women's matches. But yesterday, I watched the match since it was quite exciting. Australians were quite organized and they played according to their plan. On the other hand, the Indians were just the opposite. There was a lot of indiscipline (bowling extras and dropping easy catches). But the most shocking moment was the way in which Harmanpreet Kaur got out. It was very careless from her part not to land the bat. Such mistakes should not happen at international level.

Anyway, the match between South African women and England women has started now, with Proteas batting first. This time I felt that the T20 women's world cup was a bit colorless. Associate nations (Thailand, Scotland.etc) were not allowed to participate and it took away some fun. And also, the India vs Pakistan clash has become repetitive now. The ICC always place these two teams in the same group, so that they can earn good revenue from the TV broadcasters and sponsors. But since the clash between these two teams are so common, it has lost its charm. 

LOL... Harry Brook may or may not be the new superstar, but definitely not in test cricket. This guy scored 184 runs from 169 balls, at a strike rate of 109 in a test match. And that too in a pitch that offered enough support to the seamers at Basin Reserve, Wellington. Not sure what happened to the Kiwis. They had the best pace attack in the world, at least in tests. But now they have lost crucial members of their team such as Boult, Jamieson and Ferguson, and as a result their performance has gone down the drain. Neil Wagner is there, but he has been out of form for some time now.

Dude, if you want to watch just 32 teams playing in the world cup, then you can do one thing. You can skip the group phase and then watch from the Round of 32 onwards. For fans like me, the expansion to 48 teams is the best thing that has ever happened with the FIFA world cup. It will add more diversity to the tournament, by including more teams from Asia and Africa. The current setup, being dominated by UEFA gets quite repetitive. Obviously the Europeans will be upset about it, but they need to admit that the era of European dominance in world football is over.

Agreed. At this point, Russia has only a handful of allies, including DPRK, Iran, Belarus, Venezuela and Nicaragua (and a few breakaway regions such as Abkhazia and Transnistria). China and India are wary of the growing US influence and therefore they want Russia to act as a buffer. But at the same time, business comes first for them. At this point, both the countries are benefitting from the supply of cheap Russian hydrocarbons. But in case the Americans implement secondary sanctions, then I don't think that these two countries will have any option other than to stop their imports from Russia.

Here in India, a vial of insulin typically costs around $1.50. And I understand that the prices are at least 50x higher in the United States. And what is causing this difference? Why can't they just import the vials from India (or any other country) and distribute it among the diabetics? I have read some news reports from the United States, where diabetics were claiming that they ended up with kidney damage since they couldn't afford insulin doses. And we are talking about the United States and not some third world country.

You never know. Back in 2013, two of the franchise owners themselves were getting involved in betting. And they bet in matches involving their respective teams. Now what is the guarantee that there will be no pressure on the players to underperform, so that the management can earn some profits through gambling? The BCCI swept this issue under the carpet, because one of the accused was the son-in-law of mafia don N Srinivasan and back then the Srinivasan-Pawar mafia had complete control of the BCCI.

It was just unbelievable. The target was just 91 and even then the United Arab Emirates made a mess of it. They were losing wickets at regular intervals. From a score of 35/1, they just collapsed to 65/7. By then 27 more runs were needed with just 3 wickets in hand. And this was when Aayan Afzal Khan and Junaid Siddique added some valuable runs for the 8th wicket partnership. In the end, Namibian captain ran out of overs from his two best bowlers (Ruben Trumpelmann and Tangeni Lungameni) and it presented the UAE batsmen with an opportunity to reach the target.

Good to see Ronaldo enjoying his stay at Saudi Arabia. In cricket, we say "form is temporary class is permanent". Portuguese and Manchester United management forgot this, when they mistreated him. See how he has transformed the league, after he was inducted into Al Nassr. The Saudi Professional League is now being watched by tens of millions of people around the world and a number of star international players are considering to move to this league. But the next challenge for Ronaldo would be to win hosting rights of 2030 FIFA World Cup for Saudi Arabia. He has been included in the bidding team.

Islamabad United really benefitted from their power-packed top order yesterday. Peshawar Zalmi bowlers were unable to contain Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Rassie van der Dussen, although Colin Munro fell early during the chase. Zalmi do have experienced bowlers (Wahab Riaz, Usman Qadir and James Neesham), but were unable to stem the flow of runs. BTW, it is good to see Tom Curran bowling in the PSL. He has become one of the most sought after bowlers in franchise T20 and recently had an excellent stint with Desert Vipers in the International League T20. 

Australia side is strong? ROFLMAO. Seriously? You are talking about a team that got bundled out for 91 and 113 in the first two tests. Australia was a strong team. That was when they had players such as Ricky Ponting, Matthew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee. The current Australian team is a mere shadow of what they had two decades back. And I am pretty sure that India is going to whitewash this series by a margin of 4-0. The next two matches are scheduled in Indore and Ahmedabad and the tracks are likely to favor spinners.

There is no justification to the way Harmanpreet Kaur got her out. She was really careless and her mistake probably cost the match for India. The required run rate during the last few overs was achievable. But in the end, India ran out of batters. Lower order batters like Deepti Sharma and Sneh Rana tried their best, but scoring regularly against the Australian women was tough. Looks like Australia is on course for winning another ICC trophy. England is the only team which stands between them and the trophy as of now.

The 19th over was very crucial. Jess Jonassen conceded just 4 runs in that over, and took the wicket of Sneh Rana. Till then, India had a higher chance of winning this match. They were cruising well, with 31 needed from 3 overs and then 20 needed from 2. But the over from Jonassen changed the equations, as Deepti Sharma and Sneh Rana were unable to score singles and rotate strike. And when Ashleigh Gardner came to bowl the last over, 16 runs were needed for India and by then it was out of their reach. And credit should be given to Darcie Brown as well, for taking crucial wickets when India was looking set.

Anyway, the Indian women should look at the positives. Australia were always the favorites to win this match, and still they gave a tough fight. The players need to prepare for the WPL, which is about to start in one week time. WPL has the potential to completely change the face of women's cricket in India. And it can be beneficial for some of the overseas players as well.

We already had multiple debates on this topic. Some of the users feel that the inclusion of more teams would dilute the quality of the world cup. But I strongly disagree with such statements. From what we have seen in Qatar 2022, the gap between "stronger" and "weaker" teams have got narrowed. Asian and African teams are getting stronger with each passing year. And secondly, if we call this competition a "world" cup, then there should be adequate representation from each continent. Giving 4 slots to Asia, which is home of half of the world's population sounds illogical for me. And that is why I accept the decision by FIFA to expand the number of participants to 48.

What this has to do with the change of nationalities? Usain Bolt was born in Jamaica and he has always remained as a Jamaican citizen. On the other hand, Justin Gatlin was born in Brooklyn, New York and he has always represented the United States. If these two are the best, then they will compete against each other. That said, if Usain Bolt decides to take up the citizenship of Qatar and decides to represent the Qatari team in the next Olympics, then for me it will kill the spirit of the game. It will be a loss for Jamaica and gain for Qatar.

Even if 80% of the wealth is in the hands of 20% of the people, is it that bad? Wealth redistribution is a flawed idea and the countries who tried it have become bankrupt in a matter of few years. I am OK with this distribution (80% of wealth divided by 20%). But if the distribution is something like 90% of the wealth controlled by 0.1% of the population, then we can say that it is very asymmetric. There will be both rich and poor people in this planet, because skillset, knowledge, character and physical traits differ from one individual to another. Striving for uniform wages and wealth by normalizing these differences will never be successful.

When you ban something, actually there will be an urge to indulge in it. We all remember the IPL betting scandal that happened way back in 2013. Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan were arrested back then. And then two of the franchise owners (Gurunath Meiyappan from Chennai Super Kings and Raj Kundra from Rajasthan Royals) were found guilty of association with bookies. These incidents came to light by chance. 99% of the time, these activities never get revealed. Gambling is a big curse on cricket, and things are not going to change anytime soon.