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All I can say is that kid wasn't raised well. Or is this a crucial skill for the modern world?
Why did SA travel to Dubai when they were not playing a game there? Couldn't they wait for IND-NZ game to end before making travel plan?

The exact semi finalists as 2015 World Cup. A good ten year challenge :)

Shreyas Iyer is playing brilliantly. A treat to watch and plays exactly as the team required. Varun appeared a bit nervous but finished brilliantly with a fifer. I think we are going to finals this time as well, Aussies will find it tough to deal with our 4 spinners.

Unfortunately we may meet NZ again in the finals the way I look at it. Exciting matches ahead!

Because the Dubai semifinal is on 4 March, hence if SA were to play India, they wanted to complete the movement from Pakistan to Dubai asap. Had they waited for the result, they would had to travel on 3 Mar and play the crucial SF the very next day. Same reason why Australia also travelled to Dubai.

In fact both Australia & South Africa travelled to Dubai before the India - NZ game, apparently to ensure they were acclimatized to Dubai conditions well before they play there. I wonder if they would have done it if the semifinals were played in the same country. Example if the tournament takes place in Australia and one SF was at Sydney and the other in Perth, would two teams have travelled to either of the cities to get a look in before they know for sure where they'd be playing?

I will not get into whether our Cricketers are pampered brats or are national assets, neither on other sportsmen being allowed to travel. I would like to retsrict myself to the toothless body called the ICC.

Not too long ago, in the 1996 WC (I don't know how many here were cricket fans then), Aus and the WI - who were a force then- refused to travel to SL on account of a bomb blast, no less. They were made to forfeit their points and SL awarded full points as it was against the ICC's security assessment of the matches being safe to be played. That Aus and WI still made it to the SFs was commendable.

In this tournament too, the ICC should've put its foot down and penalised India. That, would have been consistent and fair. Not the present wishy-washy state which is a joke. And for all the posters who feel India's domination is justified, it is as wrong as the CA-ECB domination of ICC was in the 90s-noughties. So, if someone opposed it then, cheering it now would be slightly hypocritical. Without a strong ICC/ governing body, there can be no fairness, without which, there can be no even contest/development. One country/ team winning everything takes away the unpredictability of sport which, in turn, will take away all viewership, fans, broadcast rights and finally - the money. Therefore, it is in our own interest to maintain a modicum of fairness.

On that note, I read the recent interview of the Vice Chairman of Jio Hotstar in the Indian Express today which makes me cringe. He states that there is no need for international cricket as India plays teams from various countries which the average Indian doesn't even want to see. He goes on - Cricket in the Olympics is an unwanted distraction as all that money could have been spent on Indian cricketers. Either he's smoking something or I'm fast becoming a dinosaur. These days, I really don't know.

Link to the interview: -
https://indianexpress.com/article/id...ntent-9864945/

This article might provide some additional information:

https://www.bbc.com/sport/cricket/67240832

"Cricket World Cup: How politics derailed England's 2003 World Cup campaign"

"The government refused to say 'you cannot go' or countenance any suggestion of financial compensation if we didn't go. The participating nations' agreement was quite clear. Unless there were genuine safety and security grounds, or a team was forbidden by government to fulfil a fixture, there was no other acceptable excuse."

So, from what I can make out in the case of England refusing to play in Zimbabwe, the British government was not willing to 'officially' back the team's stance, though they wanted them to back out. In our case, the Government, BCCI, and the ICC are fortuitously :) aligned.

Baseball. Just look at the composition of the teams for the 'World Baseball Classic': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Baseball_Classic

70% are from one country, the US. Most of the revenue comes from the domestic league of one country, the US. Even players from traditionally 'enemy' counties like Cuba find legal ways to play in the US domestic league.

A sign of things to come with the IPL and the Big 3 in international cricket?

Unfortunately the current ICC Chairman is Jay Shah, son of Amit Shah. So we don't exactly have a conducive situation for India being penalized. lol:

And if ICC wanted to penalize India what options do they have?
BCCI was totally ok to NOT participate in the CT if they were insisted to send the team to Pak. For once, we have some clout globally in something, let's not feel guilty about it. Atleast, I ain't guilty.

Note from Support: Let us only discuss cricket on this thread, and refrain from getting into the politics of cricketing events and governing bodies.

In my view, Glenn Phillips is the best fielder in world cricket right now. Not just this series but in other games too he has been taking absolutely astounding catches. Plus his ground fielding is superb.

Rohit and Virat won't retire unless they are shown the door by bcci. Come IPL and no one will care what happened before in BGT or how we were whitewashed by NZ at home. Be prepared to see both of them for England series after IPL. Same old story of money before anything.

Might be just me but I can never agree for my team to lose even a single game. We should beat the best to be the best. And I consider Aussies the best when it comes to ICC tournaments. Quite happy we are meeting them in semis and will be fun beating them.

Team management is not just rigid but quite idiotic at times. Arshdeep has been great in white ball. KL has been abysmal with gloves and not even shining well with bat. They had perfect opportunity to play Arshdeep in place of Shami and Pant in place of KL for NZ game to check if they can make a good impact. If nothing else then playing an inconsequential game could keep both of them match ready in case someone is injured in knockouts.

In case Indian team would have traveled to Pakistan, they would have played all their matches in Lahore. They could choose to stay in Amritsar and travel on match days to Gaddafi stadium and back. This was as per the offers from PCB so that India would play in Pakistan. So in that arrangement too India would have got the advantage of the playing in the same ground all their matches.

Philips lighting social media handle started getting targeted by Kohli fans after Glen Philips' catch! :D

A politician called Rohit fat amongst other things and that turned out to be a slugfest.

Cricket fans are a different level altogether no? :)

If Aussie want to threat India, they will have to play Cooper and Sangha at slow turning wickets. But Iyer is a different ball beast to spinners. Fascinating match on cards. So far India hasn’t faced much of spin bowling.

By the way Aussies rarely buckle out at high octane KO games.

Would be interesting to see if Shami gets to play and if Varun gets in playing XI.

Excited about today's game. Hope India calms its nerves and plays like the Champions they are (unlike the ODI WC'23 final aberration).

Go Team India :)

PS: I'm not into revenge and stuff, but yeah, kinda want the team to demoralize the Aussies rl:

So the prediction comes true, now add to this Maxwell, Labuschagne, Adam Zampa to roll arm, they have enough spinners/slow arm bowlers to stop India.

Interesting game on cards :)