Month: October 2023

Saudi Arabia is all but certain to host the mens 2034 FIFA World Cup after the Australian football federation declined to enter the bidding contest.
FIFA had set Tuesday as the deadline to submit a bid to host the tournament, but Australias decision to pull out leaves Saudi Arabia as the only declared candidate.
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We have explored the opportunity to bid to host the FIFA World Cup and having taken all factors into consideration we have reached the conclusion not to do so for the 2034 competition, Football Australia (FA) said in a statement.
FIFA still needs to rubber stamp Saudi Arabia as the hosts a decision that is likely to be made next year but victory now seems a formality.
Australia will not bid for the 2034 World Cup, clearing the way for Saudi Arabia to host the tournament.
Ahmed Al Omran (@ahmed) October 31, 2023
It would be the culmination of Saudi Arabias ambitious drive to become a major player in global sports, having already spent massive amounts on bringing in dozens of star footballers to their domestic league, buying English club Newcastle, launching the breakaway LIV Golf tour and hosting major boxing fights.
When awarding the 2030 World Cup to a joint bid by Spain, Portugal and Morocco which will also feature games in South America FIFA decided to fast-track the 2034 hosting race earlier this month with only member federations in Asia and Oceania eligible to bid.
The tight deadline gave them less than four weeks to enter the race and just one month more to sign a bidding agreement that requires government support.
Within hours of the FIFA announcement, the Saudi Arabian Football Federation announced plans to bid and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) said it was backing the kingdom to bring the World Cup back to the Middle East after neighbouring Qatar hosted the 2022 edition.
Saudi Arabia will also host the mens Asian Cup in 2027 and has started a widespread construction programme to build and renovate stadiums that will also likely be used for the World Cup.
FIFAs bidding documents say 14 stadiums are needed for the 48-team tournament.
Hosting a FIFA World Cup in 2034 would help us achieve our dream of becoming a leading nation in world sport and would mark a significant milestone in the countrys transformation, Saudi Arabias Sports Minister Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Faisal said in a statement.
As an emerging and welcoming home for all sports, we believe that hosting a FIFA World Cup is a natural next step in our football journey.
Today, we enter the next chapter of Saudi football: intending to bid to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup
Our bid is inspired by Saudi Arabias transformation journey, the passion of our fans, and a commitment to deliver an amazing tournament.#Saudi2034Learn more pic.twitter.com/zmpNt86Ksl
(@saudiFF) October 4, 2023
Rights group slams FIFA
Last week Human Rights Watch complained that FIFA was failing to apply its own rules in regards to Saudi Arabias bid, specifically article seven of its human rights policy.
The article states: FIFA will constructively engage with relevant authorities and other stakeholders and make every effort to uphold its international human rights responsibilities.
The possibility that FIFA could award Saudi Arabia the 2034 World Cup despite its appalling human rights record and closed door to any monitoring exposes FIFAs commitments to human rights as a sham, Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch, said.
Saudi Arabias Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman confronted accusations of sportswashing in an interview with Fox News last month, saying: If sportswashing was going to increase my GDP by way of 1 percent, then I will continue doing sportwashing.
I dont care. One percent growth of GDP from sport and Im aiming for another one-and-a-half percent. Call it whatever you want, were going to get that one-and-a-half percent.

The action will continue in the Womens Big Bash League 2023 as Melbourne Renegades Women and Sydney Thunder Women will take on each other in Match 19 on Wednesday, November 01 at Junction Oval, Melbourne. Renegades are coming into the game having lost their last two fixtures. Theyre ranked on the seventh spot on the points table with one win from four matches having two points to their name.
On the other hand, Thunder are coming into the game having lost their previous fixture against Hobart by 24 runs. Theyre on the third spot on the points table with two wins from three matches having four points to their name. Having lost their respective last fixtures, both teams will be eager to return back on the winning track in the upcoming game.
MR-W VS ST-W Match Details

Particulars	Details
Match	Perth Scorchers Women vs Sydney Sixers Women, Women’s Big Bash League 2023
Venue	Junctional Oval, Melbourne
Date & Time	Wednesday, November 01, 9:30 AM
Live Broadcast and Streaming Details	Star Sports Network and FanCode

Junction Oval Pitch and Conditions
There have been a total of five matches played at the venue in the ongoing tournament where teams batting first have won four times. The average first innings score in the last five games has been 161 while the highest target chased is 177. The captain winning the toss is likely to bat first keeping the past record of the venue in mind.
MR-W VS ST-W Head-to-Head Record:

Matches Played	17
Melbourne Renegades Women Won	07
Sydney Thunder Women Won	10

Probable Playing XI
Melbourne Renegades Women (MR-W)
Hayley Matthews (c), Tammy Beaumont, Josephine Dooley (wk), Harmanpreet Kaur, Jess Duffin, Georgia Wareham, Erica Kershaw, Georgia Prestwidge, Sarah Coyte, Ella Hayward, Sara Kennedy
Sydney Thunder Women (ST-W)
Tahlia Wilson (wk), Chamari Athapaththu, Phoebe Litchfield, Heather Knight (c), Marizanne Kapp, Anika Learoyd, Olivia Porter, Claire Moore, Hannah Darlington, Samantha Bates, Ebony Hoskin
Probable Best Performers
Probable Best Batter
Chamari Athapaththu (Sydney Thunder Women)
The 33-year-old is the leading run-scorer for her side with 145 runs to her name from three innings at an average of 48.33 and a strike rate of 126.08 with two fifties. Athapaththu departed cheaply in the last game against Hurricanes for just 13 runs and will be eager to make amends for her low score in the upcoming game.
Probable Best Bowler
Hayley Matthews (Melbourne Renegades Women)
The 25-year-old is the joint third-highest wicket-taker of the tournament with eight wickets to her name from four innings at an average of 12.62 and an economy of 6.73. She will look to continue her form in the upcoming fixture and help her side return on the winning track.
Today’s Match Prediction: Melbourne Renegades Women to win the match
Disclaimer: The prediction is based on the understanding, analysis, and instinct of the author. While making your prediction, consider the points mentioned, and make your own decisions.

Lionel Messi has named Barcelona starlet Lamine Yamal as one of several players who could lift the Ballon dOr in the future.
The GOAT has dominated the award during his incredible career and picked up the prestigious trophy for the eighth time on Monday night.
At the age of 36, it could be the last time that Messi wins the Ballon dOr and he told LEquipe who he thinks could be in line to succeed him as the best in the world.
There is a generation of players that can compete in the coming years. There are the cases of Haaland, Mbappé, Vinicius… I dont know, there are many young people, he said.
Lamine, who is now very young and is already playing at Barcelona and being important … will play a prominent role and fight for it in the future too. There are always good players. A very nice stage is coming to for us to enjoy.
Its high praise indeed for Lamine Yamal who has already attracted enormous amounts of hype as hes made his way up the ranks and into the Barca first team.
Yet Lamine Yamal has been clearly showing what hes made of. He made have only just turned 16 but hes already broken a host of records, including becoming La Ligas youngest goalscorer.

Indian cricket team skipper Rohit Sharma took to social media to share his concerns regarding the alarming air pollution in Mumbai. Indian cricketers reached Mumbai for their Cricket World Cup 2023 match against Sri Lanka and Rohit took a picture from the flight showing the deteriorating air quality in the city. “Mumbai yeh kya ho gaya (What has happened),” Rohit posted with a picture on his Instagram story. Social media users were quick to react as they also shared their concerns about air pollution.
The AQI (Air Quality Index) has been a major concern lately with smog covering the city.
Earlier, Rohit completed 18,000 runs in international cricket, becoming the only fifth Indian to do so.
The 36-year-old veteran accomplished this milestone during India’s Cricket World Cup 2023 match against England at Lucknow. During the match, Rohit batted in an extremely tough situation.
Withstanding a fall of wickets from the other end, he kept one end steady to score 87 in 101 balls, with 10 fours and three sixes. He scored runs at a strike rate of over 86.
In 457 international matches, Rohit has scored 18,040 runs at an average of 43.57 and a strike rate of 86.71, with 45 centuries and 99 half-centuries. His best score is 264, which is also the highest-ever score in ODIs.
In 52 Tests, Rohit has scored 3,677 runs at an average of 46.54, with 10 centuries and 16 half-centuries in 88 innings. His best individual score is 212.
Rohit has also played 257 ODIs for India, in which he has scored 10,510 runs at an average of 49.57. He has 31 fifties and 54 half-centuries in this format, with the best score of 264. He is the sixth-highest run-scorer for India in ODIs.
In 148 matches in the T20I format, Rohit has scored 3,853 runs at an average of 31.32 and a strike rate of over 139. He has scored four centuries and 29 half-centuries in 140 innings, with the best score of 118. He is the second-highest run-scorer ever in T20Is.
(With ANI inputs)

PreviewBoth teams are in the top three at this stage, and the winners of this game will feel very secure about their future

New Delhi, Oct 31 (PTI) Actor Neha Dhupia on Tuesday paid homage to her father-in-law and former India cricket captain Bishan Singh Bedi, saying the family is trying to get “some life into the numbness” after his demise last week.
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Bedi, regarded as the country’s greatest ever left-arm spinner, died on October 23 after prolonged illness. He was 77.
Neha, who is married to the cricket veteran’s actor-son Angad, shared a series of family pictures with Bedi on her official Instagram account.
“We hold on to everything you gave us the morals the memories, the love the laughs the lessons, the strength and the sweetness we have you in our heads and hearts forever as we inch back n try and get some life into the numbness we feel right now Love you Dad (sic)” she wrote in the caption of the post.
Recently, Angad won the International Masters 2023 Athletics Championship in Dubai and dedicated the gold medal to his late father.
Born in Amritsar in 1946, Bedi played 67 Tests for India and took 266 wickets with 14 five-wicket hauls and one 10-wicket haul.
He was briefly the manager of the Indian cricket team in 1990 during tours of New Zealand and England.
One of the most admired Indian captains, Bedi led the team for nearly four years in Test cricket between 1975 and 1979 after Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi’s retirement. Throughout his life, he remained anti-establishment.

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The World Cup 2023 caravan, in its majestic and triumphant colour of BLUE, has reached the spiritual abode of cricket – Mumbai. And so has The Hitman – on a smashing spree. Thursday, November 2, will see Ro-Hit Sharma come home, for his first ever World Cup game on home turf.
In the build-up to this historic event, we dig into the archives to celebrate our skipper’s career at the Wankhede Stadium.
The First Dance
2006: The first innings that brought him into the spotlight. Coming to bat at number five, the 19-year-old belted a majestic 205 in 267 balls against Gujarat in the 2006/07 Ranji Trophy Super League. This innings – packaged with 20 fours and three sixes – would put him right on the radar of the selectors, and marked him out for bigger things. 
2007: A year after his carnage in the Ranji Trophy, Ro made his T20 debut in the Mumbai colours. Starting with a spell of 3/15 and then an unbeaten 40 off 37 balls against Baroda in the Inter-State Twenty-20 Tournament, the chronicle of a legend-in-the-making OFFICIALLY began.
2011: After three years in away territory, the prodigal son returned HOME. Rohit returned the love with scores of 87 vs Chennai Super Kings and 58 vs Rajasthan Royals in his first season with Mumbai Indians.
RO-mance with Wankhede: The International Cricket Version
2012: Fast forward to December 2012, Rohit stepped onto the lush greens of the Wankhede Stadium for his first-ever international match for the Indian cricket team – the second IND vs ENG T20I of the 2012 England tour of India.
2013: However, he formally ANNOUNCED himself at the Wankhede in 2013. Months after leading Mumbai Indians to their maiden Indian Premier League trophy, the Hitman would smash his second successive Test century (111 not out) against West Indies in November – which would be Sachin Tendulkar’s final outing in the Test whites. His 11 fours and three sixes were the catalysts in India’s match-defining score of 495 runs in the first innings.
2019: In 2016, Rohit’s 31-ball 43 went in vain against West Indies in the 2016 T20 World Cup semis fixture at the Wankhede. Three years later, he would redeem himself with a 34-ball 71 – infused with six fours and five sixes – that set the stage for India to clinch a 2-1 series win at the Wankhede Stadium and paint smiles of 30,000-plus Indian cricket fans at the venue BLUE.
World Cup and Wankhede, a new checkpoint for Captain RO
With the weight of almost 1.5 billion enthusiastic cricket fans on his shoulders, Rohit Sharma takes on a new challenge as a skipper in his storied career – captaining India for an ODI World Cup game at the Wankhede Stadium.
And if it couldn’t be any more poetic, the Hitman will lead India at his spiritual sanctuary for only the second time against a familiar opponent – Sri Lanka. When the teams met in a 2017 T20I match, Rohit oversaw his Men in Blue chase a target of 136 with five wickets in hand and four balls to spare. And now, given the red-hot form he is in, can the Paltan expect a Ro-HIT special on his first ODI game as captain at the Wankhede?
Rohit Sharma’s record at Wankhede Stadium

Format	Matches	Runs	Avg.	SR	Highest score
Test	1	111	–	87.4	111*
ODI	3	46	15.33	86.79	20
T20I	4	165	41.25	158.65	71
IPL	73	2020	33.11	133.95	94

Captaincy record 

Team	Matches	Won	Lost	Tied
Mumbai Indians	54	34	19	1
India	1	1	0	0

David Beckham opened the little black card on Monday night and, with a tiny bit of a verbal fumble, read out the name of the player who had won the 2023 Ballon d”Or for men’s football and thus ended what is probably the worst kept secret in the sport over the past one week. He read out the name of Lionel Messi, who also happens to be the current face of Inter Miami, the American football club Beckham owns. Messi was juxtaposed with Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappe, the two other front runners for the trophy, in the broadcast and after the announcement, it was all him. He walked up to the dais, accepted congratulations from former striker Didier Drogba, one of the two MCs for the night, and Beckham, before taking the trophy.
Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have dominated football for nearly two decades now
It was all too familiar for him. He had, after all won the coveted trinket seven times before that over the course of the previous two decades of the 21st century as well. Messi had first won the trophy in 2009 and his last victory came in 2021. It was widely believed that the ceremony last year marked the beginning of a new era, one in which Messi and his great rival Cristiano Ronaldo will not be in contention to win the title that they had made their own over the course of their illustrious careers. Karim Benzema had won it that year, with Sadio Mane as runner-up and Kevin de Bruyne in third place. And yet, a year later, here we are, seeing the Argentine superstar holding that trophy for the cameras, his famous grin lighting up virtual and physical news pages around the world.
Ronaldo’s absence
What is different about this year compared to all those others in which Messi won was that Ronaldo is nowhere even among the top 10 of the Ballon d’Or list. In fact, the Portuguese great was omitted from the 30-man shortlist as well for the first time in 20 years. This marked the first time since 2010 that Messi had won the trophy with Ronaldo being absent from the top three. There have been many who argue that Messi shouldn’t have won it this year either, making the case for Erling Haaland’s extraordinary return of 52 goals across all competitions in the 2022/23 season as Manchester City became the first English club since Manchester United in 1998/99 to win the treble of the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League.
The criteria for awarding the Ballon d’Or has often been a rather iffy topic. The fact remains that had this ceremony taken place at any point last year, there would have probably been lesser arguments, if not none, against Messi winning it. He had been pretty much the heart and soul of Argentina’s run to the World Cup title. While the debate over whether Haaland should have got it or not is a fair one, Ronaldo, never really stood a chance. He was notably relegated to the bench during Portugal’s knockout games in the 2022 World Cup and scored just one goal in the tournament. Portugal’s campaign itself in Qatar came to an end in the quarter-finals.
The World Cup had come after an ugly breakup with his club Manchester United, where he had been relegated to the bench as well and Ronaldo has been plying his trade in Saudi Arabia ever since. To be fair, Messi’s trajectory over the past one year hasn’t been extremely different. The World Cup was followed by a rather ugly divorce from Paris St Germain and he has been playing for Miami in USA’s Major League Soccer since then. However, winning the World Cup does add a lot of weightage and this has meant that unexpectedly, a new chapter may have been added to the Messi-Ronaldo saga.
A definitive end to the Messi vs Ronaldo argument?
Messi had already won the award more times than any other player before he took it on Monday night. Ronaldo had levelled Messi on five titles in 2017 before the latter won in 2019 and 2021 to pull away once again. That gap has now increased to three with the Argentine winning this year. Ronaldo is now 38 and has stated that his time in European club football is over. Chances of him winning another Ballon d’Or is slim and, let’s face it, the same can be said for Messi. He is now 36 and while there is always some rumour or the other of a return to Barcelona floating in the ether for years now, it seems quite unlikely.
So is this how it ends? Messi with three more Ballon d’Or titles than Ronaldo. Does that mark a definitive end to the question of who amongst the two is better, a question that has divided the football world since the time the two players broke into the public conscience back in the late 2000s? Well, maybe yes, from a strictly statistical perspective. But the argument has never been about statistics, but rather about feelings. Messi is now indisputable. There are other people that compare Cristiano in terms of goal-scoring. But in terms of the joy that they give you when you watch them, there’s nobody that compares with Lionel Messi, former England sriker Gary Linkeker said recently on the BBC. Well, that statement is so subjective that it would be hard to argue with someone saying that it is Ronaldo who fills them with joy.
The World Cup was pretty much the one big hole in both players’ illustrious careers in which the rest of their achievements really put them above any other player to have ever graced the sport. Messi filled that up with the kind of individual display of brilliance in Qatar last year that is at par with, if not above, what Brazil’s Ronaldo did in the 1998 and 2003 World Cup and Diego Maradona did for Argentina in 1986. These facts can never be taken away from Argentinian but lets face it, this won’t ever be enough to end arguments over whether he is truly better in the eyes of those faithful to Ronaldo.
The word better itself loses meaning at these levels. Both players have a fair shout at being called the greatest of all time by the strength of the statistics that they accumulated over the years. Their ridiculous efficiency warped evaluations of success and failure for them. For any striker, scoring about 35 goals accross competitions in a season would be seen as a job done well but for Messi and Ronaldo, dipping below 40 goals was seen as an unmitigated disaster at their peak. In such a context it is fair to say that word better loses all meaning. In the end, regardless of how many Ballon d’Or one player wins, the arguments will continue for eternity, as will the legend that these two have established.