Today's match was just a disaster for Mumbai Indians. No one really expected RCB to win by such a big margin (54 runs). Mumbai Indians have some of the best T20 players in their squad - Jasprit Bumrah, Trent Boult, Rohit Sharma, Quinton de Kock, Kieron Pollard.etc. If you take the list of top-10 players in T20 cricket, all of these players will get included in that list. But they have performed horribly so far in this season (apart from Bumrah). Boult and Milne have been inconsistent, while Rohit and de Kock are getting no support from SKY and Ishan Kishan.

Israel may have suffered persecution in the past. And I am not going to deny that. And further, I need to agree that 20% of the Israeli population is made up of Arabs and they enjoy all the rights as citizens of Israel, while the Jewish community has been exterminated from all the Arab nations. But that doesn't justify their negative involvement in other countries. They have supported Al Qaeda in Syria, against the Assad regime. In Nagorno Karabakh, they armed the Turks and Azeris with armed drones, which killed thousands of Armenian soldiers and ultimately resulted in Azerbaijan conquering historic Armenian territories. Israelis care only about themselves. They can side with anyone for their own benefit.

Yeah.. heard a lot about Jair Bolsonaro. He shouldn't be the president at all. He was elected just because he got his main opponent (Lula da Silva) jailed on false charges. Ever since he was elected as the president in 2019, he has done a lot of damage to the environment and to the citizens of Brazil. He actively encourages deforestation and encroachment of indigenous areas. The sooner he is kicked out of office, that good for Brazil (and for the world). And almost 600,000 have died from COVID so far in Brazil. That is the second highest death toll in the world (after the US).

These are just stupid moves. How they are going to make sure that the children play video games only for 3 hours per week? They can just login with someone else's account and play as much as they want. I don't understand the urge from authoritarian regimes to dictate personal life of its citizens. If they go beyond a certain limit, then the best citizens are going to emigrate abroad. China is already having a brain drain problem, but if the government goes on like this, then it will get much worse in the coming years.

A question that a lot of Chinese users have been asking is whether cryptocurrency possession is punishable (i.e illegal) or not. The statements and directives doesn't explicitly refer to possession of cryptocurrency, but my understanding is that it also comes under the ambit. Is the regime going to prosecute someone just for the possession of some codes? I don't think that they will go that far, even if it is illegal. The message that I get is that as long as the user doesn't move his coins, he's going to be OK.

Well.. if you are indeed from Pakistan, then you will be more aware of the situation. The economy has contracted, at a time when the neighboring nations are witnessing rapid economic growth. The China funded One Belt One Road (OBOR) project hasn't delivered the boost which they were hoping for (which is understandable given the worsening security situation). One big factor was the elevation of Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud in Saudi Arabia. The economic support Pakistan used to receive from Saudi Arabia trickled down to almost nothing after this.

What is the chance that a billionaire may lose all of his wealth? Such people may be having assets spread out in dozens of countries, and the investment portfolio will be diversified. The worst possible scenario may be a 80% or 90% reduction in wealth, but it can't get any worse than that. But for the middle class that is not the case. Their portfolio is not diversified. Remember what happened during the disintegration of the USSR? A lot of people suddenly lost all of their savings, because hyperinflation destroyed their pension funds.

Don't think that there is still a chance for KKR. It should be easy for CSK from here on. They just need another 66 runs in 8 overs, with 8 wickets in hand. Well.. that is unless the CSK fold up like the Punjab Kings during their match against the RR. But the difference here is that the CSK middle order is very experienced, unlike the case with Punjab Kings. Unless either Russell or Lockie Ferguson come up with some magic, I don't think that there is any chance for a different outcome to this mach. BTW, KKR should drop Narine after this match.

Agreed. But I have a few concerns. A recent study showed that the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine reduces to 42% after 5 months. And there was another study from Bahrain, which claimed that out of the total of 976 people who died from COVID 19 in that country, 119 were among those who received two doses of the vaccine (857 were unvaccinated). I can clearly see that the number of deaths are higher among the unvaccinated, but the proportion is noway near 99%. It is more like 80%-85%. There is still a considerable chance of death for those who are fully vaccinated.

https://themedialine.org/life-lines/bahraini-study-of-over-1-million-people-looked-at-4-covid-19-vaccines/

LOL.. It was the state of Ohio in the US that first came up with the idea of vaccine lottery. It was wildly successful and distributed a top prize of $1 million each to the five winners. Five others (between 16 and 18 years of age) received college scholarships as prizes. And although in Ohio the proposal came from the Republican governor, many of the Democrat ruled states also came up with similar measures later. And then it was Poland which came up with the vaccine lottery (probably the first country in the European Union). And now it is Romania.

Yes.. Australia and England are a step ahead of the rest, as far as women's cricket is concerned. Does that really surprise you? CA and ECB have invested heavily in women's cricket, unlike the BCCI. Despite a lot of requests for the WIPL, the BCCI has refused to come up with a franchise league for the women cricketers. They are now asking the national women's players to take part in WBBL and the Women's Hundred. How shameful is this? They are effectively saying that they don't have any money for the women's players and therefore they can play in tournaments organized by the CA and ECB. Is the development of women's cricket in India the responsibility of the Australian and English boards?

Two years ago, I would have loved to watch GGG fighting against Canelo. But now? Golovkin is getting near to his retirement and I don't think that he's in peak form as he was in 2017 and 2018 (when he had the two bouts against Canelo). On the other hand, Canelo is in peak form right now and for him there is no reason to agree to a fight against GGG. Maybe he'll wait for a couple of years and agree to the trilogy fight. Or maybe he will just ignore it. In brief, my guess is that even if there is a trilogy fight, that may not be competitive. Do we really want a lopsided fight?

To be honest, I have hardly used any of my signature earnings for gambling (although since 2014 I have carried signatures mostly from gambling firms). And I have to say that the decision to hold on to some of the signature earnings worked really well for me. I used to convert 60%-80% to fiat currency and the remainder was kept for long term storage. Now my only regret is that I could have saved a lot more during those early days. Back then (2014-16), it was very easy to earn up to BTC0.200 per month from signatures. Now the typical payments are 1/100th of that.

The writing on the wall is clear.. Canelo is just dominating his weight class, similar to what Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Wladimir Klitschko and GGG did during their peak years. He is just 31 years old and I don't foresee any significant competition for him in the next 2-3 years at least. And I am really getting worried about Caleb. He made a few statements (probably being told to do so by the organizers), and it might have got Canelo really irritated. I am afraid that Caleb will be beaten to pulp on November 6th.

I thought that CSK may get another easy win today, but KKR made the recovery well in the last few overs. Nitish Rana managed the innings well after Rahul Tripathi got out, and he received enough support from Andre Russell and Dinesh Karthik. Bowling was always the weak link for CSK and today Sam Curran went for 56 runs from his 4 overs. The pitch looks conductive for batting, but 172 is going to be a tough target for the CSK. But who knows? Their batsmen are in good form, and they probably have the best captain in this edition of the IPL.

IPL benefits only a few boards such as WICB, CA, ECB and CNZ (because the IPL pays 20% of the player's salary as foreigner release fee). Smaller boards as well as the PCB don't benefit, as they don't have anyone from their country playing in the IPL. And I don't know whether the ICC receives anything from the IPL revenues (my guess is that they don't).

Now coming to T20, I agree that this is the most popular format as of now. But the ICC is still headed by traditionalists and for them the test cricket is first priority. Take the case with any full member. On average, the national teams spend 50-60 days each playing test cricket every year. For ODI, this waters down to 20-30 days, and for T20I, the number is even lower.

This is the first time that I am hearing about Tether holding commercial paper from Evergrande. If it is even remotely true, then we can expect a meltdown sometime soon in the cryptocurrency market. I have always had my suspicion about the Tether foundation. Despite miting $70 billion worth of tokens, they have never conducted an independent audit. Even for the asset breakdown, they have provided only some vague figures rather than detailed list of the assets they hold as reserves. If the OP is right, then we are in for something really bad. 

Can't find the details in ESPN Cricinfo. But it is good if they are playing in 4-day matches. It is extremely rare nowadays to see the age group teams playing the longer format. The competition has mostly shifted to the T20 format, with ODI taking the second preference. BTW, when is the ICC going to decide about Afghanistan? They can't keep their decision in suspended animation mode. Either they should terminate their membership or come up with an announcement that Afghanistan (under Taliban) is allowed to participate in the ICC events.

Natarajan's absence was also quite damaging for SRH. They are now over dependent on two players - Kane Williamson for batting and Rashid Khan for bowling. Almost none of the other payers are in good form. I don't have any hope for them in the remainder of this tournament. Either some of their younger players will rise to the occasion and give support to Williamson/Rashid, or they will finish at the bottom of the points table. But glad to see the performance from DC. There is a good chance that they'll win the trophy this time.

Advantage for Delhi Capitals, which was more or less expected because some of the key SRH players are not available. And it looks as if DC is in comfortable position right now. SRH could only manage 134/9. Warner's poor form continues and he got out for a duck. The highest score was made by Abdul Samad (28). DC has started very well, with Shikhar Dhawan and Shreyas Iyer adding 41 runs so far. The problem with SRH is that their tier 2 bowlers are not of good quality (Khaleel Ahmed, Sandeep Sharma.etc).