There are certain groups of people who can't be vaccinated due to medical conditions and other issues. These restrictions are meant for them. Otherwise, everyone else is supposed to get inoculated with two doses of the vaccine (third booster dose as well, if there is a requirement). The pandemic has already killed 5-10 million individuals so far, and the governments are gradually getting stricter with the restrictions. If they want the pandemic to be contained within the next 6-12 months, then they need to compel the population to take vaccine.

Definitely not RCB. Apart from Kohli, the other players are also not in form. I am talking about Navdeep Saini and Yuzvendra Chahal. But the players to watch out for are Singapore player Tim David (impressed a lot of people during this year's edition of the Caribbean Premier League), Wanindu Hasaranga and  Mohammed Siraj. I am hopeful about Devdutt Padikkal as well. For me, the teams with maximum chances to win this year's trophy are Delhi Capitals and Mumbai Indians. Mumbai is currently at the 4th spot, but I hope they can go up quickly.   

When people are dying left, right and center, they can't tell us to "learn to live with the virus". Despite the majority of the population being fully vaccinated, the United States has 2,282 deaths yesterday from COVID 19. Are these experts OK with 2-3 thousand deaths every day from COVID? For me, this is not an acceptable situation. If you look in to the data from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 300,000 deaths have occurred in the US so far this year, which is almost the same number that was reported in 2020.

The last time I logged in to Superbru was many months back and I was afraid that they wouldn't allow me inside. Somehow managed to login and make the picks for the first set of matches. I just selected the teams, and didn't locked the pick. Right now it is RapTarX who is leading with 26 points followed by teosanru (24 pts). But it will take some time to regain the momentum and get adjusted. I was also quite busy with my full-time job and was following international and franchise cricket only intermittently.

Did anyone watched the Scotland vs Zimbabwe match yesterday? It is a three-match series and Scotland has gone up 1-0. It was a close match though. Zimbabwe was without their strike bowler (Blessing Muzarabani), and yet the seamers (Luke Jongwe/Richard Ngarava) kept Scotland in check. But they leaked too many runs in the last 2-3 overs and that handed over victory to Scotland. The Scottish batting looked very weak. Apart from Berrington, none of the other batsmen could make a score of 20.

The BCCI president (Sourav Ganguly) has issued a statement. He has said that the replacement match for the 5th test should be considered as a continuation of the England vs India series. This contradicts the report made by an Indian news paper, which claimed that Ganguly wanted the replacement match as a one-off event. But implicaitons are greater than a series loss for the ECB. If the ICC rules that the action by BCCI amounted to "acceptable non-compliance", then the ECB won't be able to claim the insurance payment for the abandoned test.

In the end, the performance depends on the players and not on the coaching or the management staff. Some of the players have been in good form, such as Wanindu Hasaranga and Avishka Fernando. If they play together as a team, then under favorable ground conditions they should be able to defeat others. But if they get complacent, then it may not be even possible to move past the qualifying stage, as you have posted. And T20 is such an unpredictable format. There is a higher chance of upsets from associate nations.

This is a complicated issue. Even where I live, a lot of people are refusing to take vaccines because of these rumors. Authorities tried legal action against a few people who were spreading such unfounded rumors, but one of the judges affiliated with the opposition party asked government to drop the charges. He claimed that pressing ahead with charges is against free speech. But the same judge recently punished a few individuals, who opined in the social media that his judgements are biased (under contempt of the court laws).

In case of El Salvador, it is easier to implement, because the national currency (Salvadoran Colon) was withdrawn in 2001. Since then, the US Dollar has served the purpose as the currency of trade and savings. So essentially the competition is between one foreign currency and another. But for the vast majority of the other nations, this is not going to be an easy step because they have their own national currencies. Bitcoin has the potential to weaken these currencies, and this can create issues for the government in balancing it's finances.

I don't think that there's anything wrong with this move. It is the choice of the individual to decide whether he want to get vaccinated or not. But at the same time, it is the choice of the government to decide whether they want to give benefits to the unvaccinated people. Now you can't argue that you are fine with one, and not with the other. Here in my country, it has been found that close to 99% of the deaths from COVID are among the unvaccinated people. Those who refuse to take the vaccine are creating danger for others as well. So I don't find anything wrong with the measures from government agencies.

Now the vaccines are available in necessary quantities and those who refuse to get vaccinated are doing so out of their own choice. And this may sound harsh, but those who refuse to get vaccinated pose a grave threat to those who are in his vicinity (both vaccinated and unvaccinated). So I wouldn't blame the government if they impose such restrictions. It is very simple actually. If you feel that the government is discriminating against you, then you can go to the nearest health center and get the vaccine.

Drugs and liquor business will be there in such areas even without the casinos. Actually, if the casinos are established in such areas, then the drug/alcohol trade will actually go down (due to heightened surveillance). And the argument that small-time rollers would gamble more is laughable. If someone want to gamble, then he will do that. For him, it doesn't matter if the casino is located 2 km away, or 200 km away. Anyway, these are not the issues for which casinos should be held responsible. These are social issues for which the government is responsible.

It will be interesting to see which country will be next, since the implementation has been completed without any major issue in El Salvador (there was a minor technical snag though, and it was resolved in a matter of couple of hours). Before the implementation, there were some well publicized protests, mainly sponsored by the opposition. But looks as if they are silent now. Even the senior citizens have now realized that there is no compulsion in using Bitcoin, and they can save a lot in the form of fees and other charges. 

Even I don't have a good opinion about Sinovac, because the countries that used these vaccine have witnessed huge spikes in new infections. Many of these countries, such as Turkey and Chile are now offering booster shots with another vaccine (AstraZeneca or Pfizer) to improve the protection level. That said, I have to admit that getting vaccinated with Sinovac is much better than staying unvaccinated. And right now Sinovac seems to be the only brand which can maintain large supplies without interruption.

Why keep blaming the government? If everyone was following the precautions (wearing of masks, maintaining social distancing.etc), then the pandemic might have got contained in 2020 itself. The entire world is suffering because of reckless behavior from a few anti-social elements who refused to follow safety protocol. And now the same is happening, as a lot of people are refusing to get vaccinated. These people are not just putting themselves in to danger, but also endangering those around them.

It is legal tender, so the merchants are supposed to provide an option for Bitcoin payment (although they can immediately convert Bitcoin to USD). Bitcoin and US Dollar are both legal tender in El Salvador, so the user can decide whether to make payments using Bitcoin or USD. The issues is only for the merchants. They need to setup a wallet and they can't refuse if anyone want to pay using BTC. And this is an issue for small-scale vendors, who do their business in physical cash. Many of them have put up "no Bitcoin" signs.

SRH is heavily dependent on overseas players and in case any of the other overseas batsmen are not available (Warner or Williamson), then Bairstow's absence will be felt more severely. The same goes for Rajasthan as well. It is not easy to replace the trio of Ben Stokes/Jofra Archer/Jos Buttler, given the volatile form of Sanju Samson. This is where they are going to miss Steve Smith badly. He could have added some stability to the middle order, especially in case Samson or Miller gets out early in the innings.

Sri Lankans prepared another minefield and it backfired on them. LOL.. imagine Aiden Markram picking up 3 wickets in a T20I match. Anrich Nortje picked up one wicket, and otherwise spinners picked up all the remaining 9 wickets (Aiden Markram, Tabraiz Shamsi, Bjorn Fortuin and Keshav Maharaj). SLCB should prepare good tracks, else this is not going to help them for the T20 World Cup. The pitches in Dubai and Oman are likely to be more conductive to batting. The Sri Lankan bowlers will get serious whacking there.

That is the aim of the European Union, to have zero net Carbon emissions by 2050. They have three decades, so it should be possible. But right now, there are a lot of countries which are using coal-fired powerplants to generate electricity. Even if they switch to natural gas, there is going to be net emissions of CO₂. One option is to replace thermal powerplants with nuclear ones, but the rise of Green party in countries such as Germany has put a doubt on such moves. Ironically, the Green party is fiercely opposed to nuclear energy, which is one of the cleanest forms of electricity generation (if managed properly).

Now this is a big issue. The WHO is delaying the clearance of many of the vaccines, in order to help the Chinese manufacturers. Here in India we have a brand called Covaxin, which had published the Phase III clinical trial data many months back. The WHO has refused to certify this vaccine. The same goes for Sputnik V and some of the other vaccines. So if someone has to travel abroad, he needs to undergo vaccination again with the useless Chinese vaccines or the Pfizer/Moderna vaccines which require booster shots every 6 months.