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CSK to lock horns with MI for IPL trophy
Kolkata: In what could be deja vu from 2013, Eden Gardens will again host Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Mumbai Indians (MI), who will lock horns for the most coveted domestic prize, the Indian Premier League (IPL) title here on Sunday.
While CSK have won the title twice, MI had clinched it once two years earlier.
However, the road to the final was not easy for either of the two teams. Mumbai had a disastrous start to their campaign as they lost all of their first four matches.
But just when things looked bleak for the Rohit Sharma-led outfit, the team bounced back with some panache as it won seven of its last nine group games to make it to the title round.
They took along the momentum to the Wankhede stadium — their home turf — where they beat CSK by 25 runs in Qualifier 1 and booked a place in the ultimate showdown.
Chennai, on the other hand, had a consistent season as they finished atop the league table with 18 points from 14 games.
But the heavyweights had a slip up enroute to the final, at the Wankhede, but recovered with a very clinical performance against the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) on Friday night as they outdid Virat Kohli’s side by three wickets in Ranchi.
Considering the head to head battles, it is difficult to differentiate between the two franchises with Mumbai having clinched 11 games to CSK’s 10.
Thus a battle of the titans await the fans and supporters at Eden on Sunday as each side unleash their full fury to clinch the trophy on a wicket that has fulfilled expectations this tournament.
“It is a different wicket than last year, you want to see a good battle between bat and ball and that is what is happening… very pleased with the pitch,” Kohli had said after an earlier game.
However, Eden’s pitch curator Prabir Mukherjee refrained from commenting on the fresh strip that will host the two teams, saying, “You will have to decide for yourself whether it is a sporting wicket when the final starts on Sunday.”
The strip may, however, be witness to a Caribbean calypso as both sides boast of a top order having swashbuckling willowers from the West Indies.
While it will be Lendl Simmons — who carved a brilliant 51-ball 65 in Qualifier 1 for Mumbai — for CSK, Dwayne Smith will open the batting. The Caribbean flavours continue as all-rounders Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard don the yellow and blue jerseys respectively.
Bravo is also the leading wicket-taker this season with 24 victims from 15 innings.
The other big guns who can step up to make a difference in the big game can be the two skippers, namely Rohit Sharma for MI, and Mahendra Singh Dhoni for the Super Kings.
One also needs to note that for the former, it has been personally one of the most happy hunting grounds as in the opening game this season he had scored a blistering 98 not out against KKR.
With the leather, both side possess an formidable weaponry, with the likes of Lasith Malinga (MI) and Ashish Nehra (CSK) marshalling the respective departments. And they sure know how to turn things around in a pressure situation.
Will it be the big guns who will make a difference or will the likes of Pawan Negi and Hardik Pandya deliver the goods and become an unlikely hero, one has to wait and watch.
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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