Well... that also means that the positions can change based on the outcome from the remaining matches. Only Brazil and Argentina are in a position where we can say that the qualification is guaranteed. They have 39 and 35 points respectively. Ecuador is having 25 points and I am 90% sure that they will qualify (given that there are only two matches remaining for each team). Uruguay is in trouble with 22 points, while right behind them we have Peru at 21 points and Chile with 19 points. And Uruguay's two remaining matches are against Chile and Peru.

I am not saying that the Hotstar app is unaffordable. Personally I have subscribed several apps, just to watch live cricket - Fancode, Hotstar, Sony Liv and Amazon Prime. Although the cost may not be high for me, it may be the case for some other people here in India. If you want to subscribe all these apps, then it can cost you at least $50 per year, which is a significant amount here. My suggestion is to keep these apps for live matches and make the video highlights free for everyone by uploading them to YouTube.

Cricket is no more a gentleman's game. And that's not because money got involved, but because of greedy businessmen controlling the ICC. Take the case of every other sports body, be it FIFA, FIH or the IOC. All these bodies are controlled by ex-athletes. And now take the case of the ICC. When was the last time that ICC had a chairman who is a former cricketer? ICC has always been under the control of greedy businessmen and these guys don't have any interest in expanding the popularity of the sport. All they care about is money.

The only issue with Afghanistan is related to politics. If the Taliban continues to remain in power, then their future looks blurred to say the least. The SENA nations are going to push for a complete boycott, and the $5 million per year ICC fund that they receive every year may be in danger as well. There is no question about the abundance of talent in that country. But all this talent pool will be of no use, in case the country is banned from sports. In the short form, I expect at least a suspension of their test status.

Right now, brent is being traded at $89.99 per barrel. It is just a matter of time before we get to three digits. There are two important reasons for this spike. First of all, the inflation rate in the US is going up and the purchasing power of the US Dollar is in freefall. And secondly, the COVID situation is improving around the world and this has resulted in a surge in demand for crude oil. At the same time, the oil production has remained flat. Even the shale oil producers within the United States are not rushing in to increase their production.

Well.. IPL is far ahead of the other leagues and no other league will come close (for obvious reasons). But that doesn't mean that the other leagues doesn't attract global audience. CPL and BBL for example are very popular in the subcontinent, while the English county level T20 championship also has a loyal following. From here it can only get better. Cricket is slowly moving from a national-team based setup to a franchise-based setup, which happened with other sports like football and basketball many decades ago.

Being a resident of India, I need to say that your assumptions about India are completely false. Around 75% of the population do have internet access and the penetration rate is going up with each year. On top of that, India has probably the cheapest rates for 3G/4G internet data in the world. 1 GB of data costs only around ₹5, which is equivalent to $0.07. In developed nations, this much data may cost $1 or more. And the population is relatively young and a large fraction holds positive views about cryptocurrency.

Well... my suggestion is to have a total of six zonal sides - Northwest, Central, West, South, East and North-Central. This will be similar to the six team setup with Plunkett Shield or the Sheffield Shield. Within the Zonal teams, we can have 6-7 state sides competing against each other. For example, NorthWest zone should comprise - Jammu Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh (not sure whether Ladakh even has a cricket team). This will eliminate the possibility of lop-sided contests.

If there are very few teams playing cricket, then the ICC is also responsible for that. They killed cricket in associate nations when Srinivasan-Pawar cabal was in power. Everyone knows what happened to teams such as Kenya and Canada. After showing a lot of promise, cricket died out all of a sudden in these countries due to lack of support from the ICC. And what happened in Zimbabwe also needs to be blamed on the ICC. They are still supporting the corrupt cricket board members, despite receiving proof that the funds are being stolen.

The same happened in Sri Lanka as well, right? The BCCI refused to cancel the series and went ahead with the matches. And India lost them by big margins. BTW, I am not sure whether cancelling these matches is the right decision. If they do that then the TV rights holders will lose big amounts and the BCCI needs to reimburse them. And another big concern would be related to the 2020–2023 ICC Cricket World Cup Super League. Time is running out and each team needs to play a total of 24 matches during this time period.

I guess they can't upload these clips to YouTube, due to T&C of the television contract. Maybe BCCI should cut down on greed and ask the media rights holders to make highlights of already completed matches freely available for all. I am a regular visitor of YouTube channels of ECB and CA, and every now and then they upload full highlights to their channel (for example the recently concluded Ashes). I don't know why the BCCI can't do the same. Maybe they need to reduce the sale amount for TV rights by 4% or 5%.

You can't write off any of the CONMEBOL teams. Even the lowest ranking teams like Bolivia and Venezuela can destroy the top ranking teams from Asia or Africa. And regarding teams such as Chile and Colombia, they are not doing well recently. Only the top 3 (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay) are performing consistently in long term. Now talking about Ecuador, they have performed exceptionally so far in this tournament. The only disappointment so far has been Paraguay. They are at the ninth place right now.

The existing franchises can retain up to 4 players (although not all the franchises have done that). That puts the new franchises in a bad position, as most of the star players are not available. Only those players who are out of form and kicked out of their old franchises are available for auction. Examples are KL Rahul and Hard dick Pandya. And that is the reason why I am not expecting these two franchises to perform properly for the first one or two seasons. It is going to take some time for them to catch up with the other franchises.

El Salvador should say STFU to IMF. The IMF pointed out mainly two things - volatility and usage in criminal activity. These guys don't have an issue when the value of fiat currencies go down like a falling knife. They don't have an issue when fiat currency is being used for the majority of criminal activity around the world. The real issue is not with volatility or anything else, but with the insecurity being felt by fiat lapdogs like the IMF. The president (Nayib Bukele) and the treasury minister (Alejandro Zelaya) have reacted defiantly to the demands, and rightly so.

Obviously you can't compare PCB with the pig-3 (BCCI, CA and ECB) in terms of revenues. But at the same time, the PSL has given the board a noticeable spike in net fund inflows. The competition is attracting a lot of talent from around the world and the TV ratings are also going up with every passing year. And this has happened despite all the woes associated with COVID. BTW, are you talking about the match between Multan Sultans and Quetta Gladiators? Lahore Qalandars didn't had any match yesterday.

I don't think that his contract amount in IPL was that high. IPL is the richest league around the world, but the salaries can be very uneven. For example, Sandeep Lamichhane was receiving only ₹2,000,000 ($27,000) from his IPL stint, while he earned manytimes that amount from the BBL and BPL. And I don't think that Pakistani players are all saints. Multiple players including Mohammed Asif and Danish Kaneria have been accused of match fixing and many of them have received bans from the ICC as well.

Ranji trophy is a very old competition and there is no doubt about it. But at the same time, I have to say that the quality has gone down the drain. There are simply too many teams competing right now. Look at the English county championship. There are 18 teams competing, and still they are thinking about cutting down the number of participants. Australia and West Indies have just 6 first class teams and same is the case with New Zealand. India should move from a zonal level first class competition from the current state-level setup.

It is ridiculous to post such baseless allegations. No one has accused Ashwin of chucking so far in his one and half decades of career, and I am not sure from where the OP got this idea. Ashwin has played in almost all the SENA nations, and I have never heard about anyone there complaining about his bowling action. And nowadays with technological advancement such as superslow video recording, it is almost impossible to get away with chucking. And the ICC has also formulated very strict laws against it.

Well.. let's keep politics out of this thread. If you claim that "neighbor country" is responsible for what happening in Balochistan, then they will argue back that Pakistan is also responsible for what is happening in Kashmir. The issue here is security issue within Pakistan and it is foolish to blame anyone else for that. Are you saying that security situation in Pakistan is not the responsibility of the Pakistani government?  And now coming to New Zealand, you can't even compare the situation there to that in Pakistan. NZ remains one of the safest countries in the world.

Yeah... the M1 supply of US Dollar went up by 400% or so in the last 3 years. I checked similar numbers for other fiat currencies such as GBP, EUR and JPY, and with none of these currencies the situation was this bad. On top of that, the crude oil prices have breached the $90 per barrel level and are surging towards the three digit mark. That should further magnify the impact of inflation in the United States. Biden needs to act now, as the elections are only 9 months away (Senate/House). There is a real chance that Dems may lose a few important senate seats this time.