I like my champions to be imperfect, for them to have traits that confuse me, or make me a little unsure about them. Their foibles, as much as their strengths, are what keep me hooked.
In other words, I like my champions to be like Mahela Jayawardene, for whom the farewell has begun. He is quitting Tests next month. He has already left Twenty20s. Early next year, he will be gone entirely and another age of Sri Lanka cricket will be at an end.
While this is about Jayawardene, so too, is it about Kumar Sangakkara. Sangakkara is a champion as well, but he is so perfect there is an element of unreality about him, which makes him a distant fantasy.
He bats like a dream, looks as good in jeans as he does in a suit and wants to be a lawyer.
One day, he will broker world peace, or eliminate poverty. Then he will write a book about it, which will probably win a Pulitzer, and then he will talk about it, and his words will be the talk of the town forever.
The two are conjoined. In Pakistan, when talk turns to a similarly conjoined great pair, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, it ends up being a discussion about who is better (Akram, obviously).
For what it is worth, I would be with Jayawardene, always.
I think it is because his batting has a dilettantish quality. Modern batsmanship is increasingly aware of the gravity of its own function. It seems to require – as it did in Rahul Dravid or Sachin Tendulkar, and yes, Sangakkara – a great, demanding devotion.
Jayawardene’s batting has always been lighter and less burdened. He bats, it seems, because he loves batting, which is not the same as loving the end product of all batting: scoring runs.
That should not be mistaken for complacency, because an average of 50 after 145 Tests, or 33 hundreds, does not just happen during a stroll through life.
Sure, greater rigour may have helped him in places like Australia or South Africa, but that is fine. Such patterns are found in a lot of the best sportsmen.
That freedom is probably what allowed him to become such a fine opener in 50-over cricket. Suddenly, he began playing these new, modern shots, fitting them onto an essentially classical base.
Jayawardene’s move to opening was a discovery of the self, not necessarily for improvement, or efficiency. It was more like a loving renovation of an old, treasured car or bike, not done so much to improve performance as for the love of it.
It was an unexpected transformation, because he had always been a particular kind of middle-order batsman, and a joyous one to watch.
But it was his captaincy that I really loved. Few modern captains have so obviously looked like they were working something out on every ball, like how else they could delve into a batsman’s head enough to dismiss him. Michael Clarke does. Mark Taylor used to.
Jayawardene has a lovely, organic feel for the game, for the moments on which it hinges, and its psychologies.
He was unafraid to use rarely-employed field settings – hello, the leg gully – and, especially in one-day internationals, seemed to know precisely when to change bowlers, when to attack, when to hold.
In a way, his captaincy was much like his batting – so bewitching it helped make results trivial.
Take his hundred in the 2011 World Cup final, not because it proved or disproved his quality as a winning batsman, but because it was just an exquisite piece of work, to be appreciated for itself and isolated from something as piddling as a result.
He remains Sri Lanka’s winningest Test captain, alongside Sanath Jayasuriya, but that is by the by. Sometimes, the results did not seem as important as what he did on the field, always compelling and, even in defeat, laudable.
More broadly, as a leader, he expanded the definition of what we accept to be aggression, but in his own way.
He was not, and did not oversee, behaviour as ugly as that of the Australians. Neither was he as permanently confrontational as Arjuna Ranatunga, though posterity will remember that it was his leadership that revived Sri Lanka from their post-Ranatunga plateau.
But there was something in him for sure, an inner tempest that flashed before us occasionally, during his wicket celebrations, or maybe another slip catch, when one eye widened more than the other and he would look a little crazy.
In a way, it represented perfectly Sri Lanka’s modern inflection.
osamiuddin@thenational.ae
MATCH INFO
Rugby World Cup (all times UAE)
Final: England v South Africa, Saturday, 1pm
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
In numbers: China in Dubai
The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000
Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000
Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent
THE BIO: Martin Van Almsick
Hometown: Cologne, Germany
Family: Wife Hanan Ahmed and their three children, Marrah (23), Tibijan (19), Amon (13)
Favourite dessert: Umm Ali with dark camel milk chocolate flakes
Favourite hobby: Football
Breakfast routine: a tall glass of camel milk
The Lowdown
Us
Director: Jordan Peele
Starring: Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Shahadi Wright Joseqph, Evan Alex and Elisabeth Moss
Rating: 4/5
Classification of skills
A worker is categorised as skilled by the MOHRE based on nine levels given in the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) issued by the International Labour Organisation.
A skilled worker would be someone at a professional level (levels 1 – 5) which includes managers, professionals, technicians and associate professionals, clerical support workers, and service and sales workers.
The worker must also have an attested educational certificate higher than secondary or an equivalent certification, and earn a monthly salary of at least Dh4,000.
APPLE IPAD MINI (A17 PRO)
Display: 21cm Liquid Retina Display, 2266 x 1488, 326ppi, 500 nits
Chip: Apple A17 Pro, 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Storage: 128/256/512GB
Main camera: 12MP wide, f/1.8, digital zoom up to 5x, Smart HDR 4
Front camera: 12MP ultra-wide, f/2.4, Smart HDR 4, full-HD @ 25/30/60fps
Biometrics: Touch ID, Face ID
Colours: Blue, purple, space grey, starlight
In the box: iPad mini, USB-C cable, 20W USB-C power adapter
Price: From Dh2,099
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Akeed
Based: Muscat
Launch year: 2018
Number of employees: 40
Sector: Online food delivery
Funding: Raised $3.2m since inception
The%20specs
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Paris Can Wait
Dir: Eleanor Coppola
Starring: Alec Baldwin, Diane Lane, Arnaud Viard
Two stars
Scoreline
UAE 2-1 Saudi Arabia
UAE Mabkhout 21’, Khalil 59’
Saudi Al Abed (pen) 20’
Man of the match Ahmed Khalil (UAE)
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
