Agreed. It was the BCCI which decided to hand out very lax punishment to both the franchises. And they allowed the franchise ownership to remain unchanged (although the teams were suspended for two years). With any other sports league, the franchise contract would have been cancelled. The owners indulging in match fixing is a very serious offense. And players such as Sreesanth got life bans for accusations, that were later proven to be false.

Jason Holder was included in the place of Sandeep Sharma. That turned out to be a good move. And Shahbaz Nadeem (who came in for Mohammed Nabi) picked up the crucial wicket of Shahbaz Ahmed, so in a sense that change also worked. SRH should be pretty satisfied with their bowling effort. They kept RCB under 150. And once again, Rashid Khan conceded less than 5 runs per over. They looks very comfortable in the chase, with David Warner and Manish Pandey looking well set.

OK.. Royal Challengers Bangalore made just one change. Devdutt Padikkal is in for Rajat Patidar. On the other hand SRH has still not included Kane Williamson. Makes me wonder whether David Warner is having a personal enmity with Williamson. They made two changes - Mohammed Nabi and Sandeep Sharma are dropped and Jason Holder and Shahbaz Nadeem included in their place. Not very happy with the SRH changes. They should have included Williamson. 

Russell was not in great form during the previous edition as well (IPL 2020). He averaged just 13.00 with the bat and made a grand total of 117 runs during the entire tournament. His strike rate was below 150.00 as well. At least this time, he seems to have regained his form with the ball. He took 5 wickets in just 12 balls and that prevented the Mumbai Indians from posting a decent enough total. If that is the case, then Russell needs to be included in the playing XI as a bowler and KKR needs to strengthen their batting lineup.

Is Devdutt Padikkal available for todays match? If he is included in the Royal Challengers Bangalore playing XI, then definitely it is going to be a big boost for them. On the other hand, there are rumors that RCB will also include Adam Zampa and Kane Richardson. These two being overseas players, it will be interesting to see who will be dropped. One possibility is that Kyle Jamieson and Dan Christian will be dropped. But it is going to be harsh on Jamieson who bowled well during the last match (nabbed the wicket of Suryakumar Yadav). 

Stokes was one of the crucial members of the team and his absence will devastate their middle order (although in the match against Punjab he batted as an opener). Now there is a lot of pressure on the Rajasthan middle order, which includes players such as Shivam Dube, Riyan Parag and Rahul Tewatia. Only Sanju Samson and Jos Buttler have enough experience in the RR batting lineup. Also his absence will be felt in bowling as well.   

Sad news coming in from Zimbabwe: Heath Streak is banned for 8 years, for taking part in match fixing. He is accused of fixing multiple matches (both international matches and those in franchise T20 leagues) and one important aspect is that he received a part of the bribe in the form of Bitcoin. This is very bad, as he was one of the heroes during my childhood days. Details of the charges against him can be found here:

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/heath-streak-handed-eight-year-ban-for-breaching-icc-anti-corruption-code-1258953

I made the post because I have seen Mumbai Indians losing close matches, because they chose the wrong bowler for the final over. But this time, everything went well for Mumbai Indians. They came from a situation where everyone had written them off. When you have two of the most experienced IPL batsmen at crease (Dinesh Karthik and Andre Russell) it is natural to assume that they would successfully chase the target without much wobble. But the Mumbai Indians bowlers had other plans. First it was Krunal Pandya who took the crucial wickets and then it was Bumrah and Boult who bowled the tight overs. And obviously the credit should go to Rohit Sharma as well, for the tactics today.

LOL.. I take back my words. In the end, it was Boult who won the game for MI, in combination with Rahul Chahar and Krunal Pandya. I don't know what happened to Andre Russell. He completely failed with bat. If he had scored at least a run per ball, then Kolkata Knight Riders would have won the game. But he and Dinesh Karthik were just wasting balls towards the end. And also, Boult took an amazing catch (of his own bowling) to dismiss Russell. That was like the last nail in the coffin of KKR.

LOL.. this is turning out to be such an exciting match. All of a sudden, Mumbai Indians came back with some quick wickets. But for heaven's sake please keep Trent Boult away from bowling now. On previous occasions, he had completely failed to bowl under such pressure situations. Jasprit Bumrah has one over remaining and Marco Jansen has two. These two should bowl the 19th and 20th overs. Even Kieron Pollard would be fine. But please keep Trent Boult at least 30 yards away from the bowling end.

So let me summarize it - XRP crashes by 70% after SEC files a lawsuit against them. And then XRP recovers to the previous levels, when they get some interim relief from the judge. Now tell me one thing. What is the guarantee that another ruling against them will not happen sometime in the near future? And in case that happens, can we expect another 70% crash? As far as I know, the lawsuit is still ongoing. The complete ruling hasn't come out yet. XRP supporters should not rejoice too much at this point.

Just be patient. Vaccination has shown excellent returns in countries such as the United Kingdom, Israel and the United States. So you know how to defeat this pandemic. The only issue here is regarding the supply of the vaccines. In most of the developing nations, less than 10% of the population has received the first dose of the vaccine and only around 1% to 2% have been completely vaccinated. But the situation will change in the second half of this year, when the supply will become available for the third world nations.

BNB is unique and it is different from all the other coins in a sense. Because with BNB the circulating supply actually goes down with time. And for all the other cryptocurrencies, the circulating supply either increases (at a certain limit), or in rare cases it stays the same. But since BNB has all these "burn events", its circulating supply will decrease with every passing month. And this is one of the merits with the Binance coin, as far as the investors are concerned.

If you have an ordinary captain, then you lose matches even with the best players. On the other hand, if you have an intelligent captain, then you can win matches with average players. The first scenario is applicable to teams such as Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals, while the latter scenario is applicable for teams such as Kolkata Knight Riders and Punjab Kings. Rohit Sharma's captaincy is not working for Mumbai Indians.

 

If they are worth $3 billion right now, just imagine how much they will be worth when BTC reaches a valuation of $1 million per coin. The Winklevii did the right thing by investing in an asset which was hardly known in mainstream market at that time. And this is like a sweet revenge for them. They lost the battle for Facebook to Zucker. But the same Zucker tried to steal the concept of cryptocurrency later, while attempting to create Libra shitcoin. Imagine what would be in Zucker's mind after a few years, when Facebook will be forced to accept Bitcoin.

So Mumbai Indians will be batting first. Kolkata Knight Riders won the toss and asked their opponents to go first. Quinton de Kock is included in the playing XI for MI, replacing Chris Lynn. That was not a surprise, but I would say that it is harsh on Lynn. He performed exceptionally well during the last match (top-scored for MI with 49 runs from 35 balls against Royal Challengers Bangalore) and gets dropped for this match. Life is tough, sometimes.

Pant got so many opportunities because the slot of wicket keeper batsman was vacant at that time. He performed well and became the regular of the squad. On top of that, he got the support from Virat Kohli and damaadji. Samson doesn't enjoy the same level of support. He plays for a minor domestic side (unlike Pant, who plays for Delhi) and he couldn't make use of the limited opportunities he got so far. But right now, I don't see an opening for Samson. Pant seems to have cemented his place in the playing XI.

For the wicket keeper batsman role, already KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant is there and Sanju is the third choice. And although he has performed well in the IPL, his performance in the international scene is not up to the mark. Also, a number of competitors are in reckoning, such as Ishan Kishan. So unless Samson performs exceptionally well for the remainder of this year's IPL, I don't think that the selectors will include him in the squad for the T20 World Cup.

During the past few days, XRP had a few legal victories (which is being reflected in the exchange rates). Today Judge Sarah Netburn refused a request from the SEC, to have access to financial data from the XRP promoters (Chris Larsen and Brad Garlinghouse). The judge termed the request from SEC as an "overreach". But this is bad news for decentralized cryptocurrencies such as BTC and ETH. SEC had argued that coins such as ETH doesn't come under the Section 5 of the Securities Act, since no individual promoters benefitted from the ICO. But the judge has rejected this argument. And this can create issues for real cryptocurrencies such as BTC in the future.

I won't be surprised if the altcoin season ends this month itself. The current rally is not sustainable. I don't have any issue with coins such as BNB, DOT and ETH (BNB looks a bit overpriced though). But due to the hype, shitcoins such as XRP and DOGE has also gone up by 20x or 30x during the last few months. And many of the shitcoins have gone up even more than Bitcoin in terms of percentage. Right now the altcoin market is looking like a hyperinflated bubble.