The ill-timed lonesome test match is over and all the excitement is shifted to the three one-dayers to be played between India and Bangladesh. Excited?

Looking forward to some interesting cricket since the minnows (read: Bangladesh) have grown up and becoming a challenge in the local neighbourhood?

Well, next few days will prove how big a challenge they are if challenge is the right word to be used in their context, that is! What’s more interesting is that there are some surprises in store and the best surprise is that this India Bangladesh series will not benefit India at all!

Let’s share how this did happen:

1) Right now India is place at the second place and the gap between leading side Australia and India is quite huge. Therefore even a 3-0 win over Bangladesh will not help India to reach the top of the charts!

2) On the other hand, even if Bangladesh loses the series 2-1, they would still qualify to participate in the 2017 Champions Trophy from June 1-19 in England and Wales! Only way they can lose out on the chance is if they lose 3-0 and lag behind West Indies with both the teams tied at 88 points, but the Caribbean team leading on the eight spot!

3) For India, a 2-1 loss would mean we equal the points with New Zealand but still lie under them given how excitingly they are playing against England right now!

4) While Virat Kohli is on fourth spot on the list of best batsmen, Shikhar Dhawan is at 7^th spot and M.S. Dhoni is at 9^th spot!

5) Coming to Dhoni, this will really test his equation with Virat Kohli. After taking over test captaincy and right during the test match conference, Virat gave a statement that the era of learning is over and it is time to play to win the test matches! This is stark opposite to what Dhoni has been saying for all these years about learning from every game and taking home the lessons to prepare for next game.

Virat’s aggressive attitude and change in body language was clearly visible during the match and his approach towards the game might come across as contradictory to Dhoni’s style of captaincy! Can they work on it or will it create internal secret feuds?

There can be many more surprises going into the game, but we really hope that things remain smooth and beneficial for the ultimate benefit of the game.

Let the best team win. However, we really wished if this series mattered to India more than it matters to Bangladesh!

No ways we are saying that the team should be taken lightly, but then our cricketing heroes got to play some difficult teams to come out shining rather than taming the minnows!

Let the game begin and with that, the fun!

The post Some Surprising Truths of Upcoming India Bangladesh One-Day Cricket Series! appeared first on Youngisthan.in.

Yes it just might happen… this time, for real!

Taslima Nasreen might just succumb to an attack on her by a Bangladeshi group of extremists.

Taslima Nasreen, one of the world’s most outspoken authors on topics like feminism, gender bias and anti-religious criticism is again under the ire of the Muslim community. The Bangladeshi author is now struggling to keep her life safe in spite of being targeted by several pro-Muslim groups who are hell-bent on removing all her work from the public’s reach.

Taslima Nasreen

She is one of the few authors like Salman Rushdie who are actually hated for their literary work especially since she writes on topics that question humanity, its social dogma and why women are objectified by men for sheer carnal pleasure.

Life History

Thanks to her fiery and outspoken tone, she had been banished from her home country, Bangladesh in 1994 and took asylum in the West like USA and European countries.

Even then, she published such works to register her angst against this society which treats women like garbage and always questioned the mentality of men – ‘they think with their penis and that a woman is simply an object for sex, nothing else more’, that’s what she always highlights.

She has taken shelter in India for some time hoping to stay as close as possible to her alma mater. However, in India too, she faced immense hate from all factions of the society who did not believe in what she writes and deemed her work devilish and culpable to society. Many of her books were burnt and she had to flee from Kolkata towards Delhi in order to protect her life. She even faces a mild ban on the sale of her books in West Bengal.

Battling for her life is one constant struggle in the life of Taslima, an author who has used the ‘power of the pen’ to question society, its abhorrent rules and why this society is so disrespectful and thankless to the contribution of women in this world.

She was put on house arrest in Delhi for some time. She even hoped for an Indian Citizenship but that was never granted, after all India does not want communal riots over literary work! She currently lives in India on a Swedish passport.

Death Threats

Taslima has faced innumerable threats from countless groups. But, this one is more terrifying since it is happening in front of everyone’s eyes – social media threats!

A Bangladeshi terror group called Ansarullah Bangla Team is now planning to travel to New Delhi (where she currently resides) and plan to kill her after entering West Bengal from the east border of India-Bangladesh.

Ansarullah Bangla Team

Apparently, the group follows the ideologies of Anwar Al-Awlaki, a Yemeni al-Qaeda activist who was recently involved in the bloody lynching of America-based Indian writer Avijit Roy and microsite-blogger Washiqur Rahman this previous month for severely criticising Islam and its ideologies.

Are These Threats Credible?

Yes! This threat is grave and serious! The members of this team are brazen and vile! They post their hate messages online just before they attack and kill their victim. Before killing Avijit and Washiqur, they used the same formula of using radicalism and inciting fear within the writer’s mind.

However, Taslima has told the media, “It is scary. But as long as I live, I will not be silenced,”

Even intelligence sources from India and Bangladesh are working hard to protect her life, maybe she might be sent to some other country. Since Washiqur was attacked merely because he wished Taslima on her recent birthday and posted the super-controversial Charlie Hebdo pictures defaming Islam on his Facebook timeline.

Recently, Taslima’s Facebook page is getting 90% death threats and most of them are scary and seem legible!

Some posts read like this:

“Get ready for the afterlife,” one person posted.

“See you in hell,” wrote another.

Recently, the killers of Washiqur confessed that they are infiltrating into India and are planning to her assassinate her.

The ruling party of West Bengal, TMC had denied to comment since she is currently under the Central Government’s protection.

Taslima is seeking a meeting with Indian PM Narendra Modi for some urgent discussion regarding her life’s safety and an Indian citizenship for herself, but no statement has been released on it by the PMO.

We just hope that the extremists come to their senses and stop all this madness. We at Youngisthan are also writers and we know that writing fiery blogs does not mean a direct threat to life. Dear readers, please be sane and exercise your discretion.

The post Taslima Nasreen’s Life Is In Danger… Again! appeared first on Youngisthan.in.

Sunday’s matches – West Indies vs. UAE and Pakistan vs. Ireland – decided the line-up for the ongoing ICC World Cup quarter-finals.

Where West Indies convincingly beat UAE, Pakistan took their own time to strike the final blow against Ireland.

Though it was an easy win for West Indies, they had to chase whatever the target set inside 36 overs. They managed to do that in the 31^st over after losing 4 wickets.

Jason Holder, the West Indies captain, was extremely pleased with the result and must have revelled in his own individual performance of 4 for 27.

West Indies captain Jason Holder celebrates a wicket

“We needed to win by a certain margin. We had to show positive intent. We knew we had to finish the game inside 36 overs and we did it”, is what he said during the post-match presentation ceremony.

The final Pool match between Pakistan and Ireland saw Pakistani wicketkeeper Sarfraz Ahmed become the first man since 2007 World Cup to score a century for his team in this major tournament.

Sarfraz Ahmed scored an unbeaten century against Ireland

The conclusion of yesterday’s matches meant that the World Cup has its eight quarter-finalist teams – South Africa, Sri Lanka, India, New Zealand, Australia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and West Indies – that will compete against one another for the coveted prize.

CONFIRMED, We have our 8 quarter-final teams & 4 brilliant #cwc15 matches coming up! MORE – http://t.co/4toFMH6x0q pic.twitter.com/oUYBeFnfEV

— ICC (@ICC) March 15, 2015

The first quarter-final match will be played on 18^th March between Sri Lanka and South Africa. Defending champions India will take on their Asian adversary Bangladesh on the 19^th in Melbourne. Australia, the four-time former World Cup champion, will face Pakistan on March 20. The quarter-finals will end with co-host New Zealand taking on West Indies on the 21^st of March in Wellington.

Where the post-match programme Cricket Live yesterday saw the cricket legends predicting winners of the quarter-finals as South Africa, India, Australia and New Zealand, it will only be on the match day when we get to witness as to which teams handle the pressure better.

In case any of the quarter-final / semi-final matches gets abandoned or tied, the team that finished in a higher position than their opponent would move on to the next stage of the competition.

The post And The Eight Teams To Qualify For The ICC World Cup Quarter-finals Are… appeared first on Youngisthan.in.