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.   

It makes zero sense to provoke China now, especially at a point when the Russo-Ukrainian war has polarized the globe. And this time, the US administration is solely to blame. There was no provocation from China. It was the US which started all this drama by sending Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan. China is in a situation similar to Russia. Gradually they are being surrounded by American bases in RoK, Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines. And when they tried to establish a naval base in the Solomon Islands, the Americans went ballistic and sabotaged that plan by threatening the Solomon Islands regime.

I don't know whether Trump would have done any better. But his term (2017-2020) was devoid of American involvement to major global conflicts. Biden came to power in 2021 and all the drama started once again.

I still don't know whether the WPL will find a large audience among the Indian women. Being a women, it is hard to find anyone from my gender interested in cricket. Even among my colleagues, almost all of those who are interested in women's cricket are men. My female colleagues are in general not interested in sports and even in cases where they show interest, it is for sports such as tennis and badminton. I am not sure about the younger generation though.

At one point, 90% of the world was ruled by European powers. Japan was the only major non-European colonial power, and their domain was limited to Korea, Taiwan, Micronesia.etc. That said, football was never considered as a colonial sport. It was not spread through colonization, unlike the case with cricket. The fact that Latin American countries are strong in football has to do more with the demographics rather than colonial history.

A majority of the population in Argentina and Uruguay are descended from Italy, where football is extremely popular. Spain as the colonial power never contributed much to the popularity of football in these countries. In case of Brazil, there is a huge Italian population, but there is also a mixed race population comprised of former slaves. Football is very popular across these two segments. Half of Brazilian population is white, but apart from the Italians, you hardly see any whites being represented in the Brazilian national team.

Spain was the main colonial power in Latin America. They ruled over all the countries apart from Brazil and Guiana. But if their influence was the sole metric for popularity of football, then Mexico and Peru should be as strong in football as Argentina. That is not the case.

Well.. the BCCI seems to have gone arrogant, after all the multi-billion deals with media rights and IPL franchise auctions. Previously, at least one former player was there in the top management (Sourav Ganguly). But now it is all politicians and their relatives. BTW, general elections are due in 12 months. There is a real chance that the opposition will come to power. If that happens, the Jay Shah-Anurag Thakur cabal will be replaced by Sharad Pawar-Srinivasan mafia. And that is going to be even worse.

No matter how bad the pitch was, it doesn't take away the fact that the Indians scored just 109 runs in their first innings. This is the same pitch where Australians managed to score close to 200. And the Australians had only one experienced spinner with them (Nathan Lyon).  The other two were making their debut in this series (Matthew Kuhnemann and Todd Murphy).

The wins against England were commendable, but South Africa and West Indies are not exactly top notch teams, at least in test format. Yeah.. I remember about the sandpaper gate. The ones who actually did the ball tampering got away with a warning, while Smith and Warner got suspended for a year. Anyway, although Smith lost one year of quality cricket, he came back in full force during the next Ashes series. But if he manages to get a 2-2 result in BGT, it will be hailed as one of his biggest achievements. And for that, he needs to score some runs in the 4th test. Although his captaincy tactics have been commendable, his contribution with the bat hasn't lived up to the expectations.

Yes.. it was a lucky win for Nepal. Now they have kept their hopes alive. In the points table, there is a good chance that they maybe able to overtake the United States. Nepal has 5 more matches remaining and in case they win 3 of them, then they can finish ahead of USA at 36 points (US is having 35 points). But the bigger threat is from the United Arab Emirates. They have 6 matches remaining and are at 31 points. If they win just 3 of these matches, then they can finish ahead of Nepal. Anyway, all the remaining matches are crucial, because the final standing in the points table will decide who gets more funding from the ICC.

And congratulations to England, for their comprehensive victory against Bangladesh. They won by a massive margin of 132 runs. Bangladesh was never in the picture. After the partnership between Jason Roy and Jos Buttler, it was the turn of Moeen Ali and Sam Curran. And in the second innings Bangladesh could never keep up with the required run rate, as they were losing wickets regularly.