Morning session
Australia 229 for nine at lunch. To butcher a football cliche, it was a session of three very misshapen thirds. No wickets in the first half hour, but 28 easy paced runs for Australia. Then five wickets for spit in the next 30 minutes as James Anderson and Graeme Swann destroyed the brittle Australian lower order. Then Ashton Agar arrived in Test cricket, and the match took the sort of turn that Agatha Christie usually scripts.
Afternoon session
Australia 280 all out. England 11 for two at tea Agar plus his parents and two brothers in the stands, all shared a rueful smile when he holed out two runs short of what would have been a stunning century. Maybe the fairy-tale had the wrong ending, but at least the No 11's heroics had put Australia in the box seat in the Test match. After Agar did the business with the bat, his doppelganger Mitchell Starc, above, dismissed Joe Root and Jonathan Trott in successive balls.
Evening session
England 80 for two at stumps. After the frivolity, some sobriety. England needed to hunker down after the extraordinary 10th wicket stand by Australia. They did so thanks to some customary solidity from Alastair Cook, as well us some less-than-trademark circumspection by Kevin Pietersen. England's two senior batsmen edged their side into credit. With no wickets lost in the session, their 69 run partnership inched them up to a 15 run lead in the match.
THE PERFECT 11
Ashton Agar’s 98 from 11th man scratched a sore that has regularly irritated England.
Tino Best (West Indies)
The West Indian only held the record for the highest score by a No 11 in Test cricket for just over a year, after Agar bettered the 95 he made in the 2012 Edgbaston Test. He did not seem too perturbed though, as he immediately tweeted his congratulations to Agar. “Must say we as number 11 batters in Agar and myself love this English bowling attack #SweetLikeSugarCane.”
Danny Morrison (New Zealand)
At one point, Morrison held the world record of 24 Test ducks. He was not so useless that he could not annoy England’s bowlers for a whole day, though. He scored 14 in an unbeaten 10th-wicket stand of 106 with Nathan Astle which saved the Auckland Test of 1997, before being summarily dropped following what turned out to be his final appearance.
Paul Adams (South Africa)
Despite only making a paltry 153 in the Cape Town Test of 1995, England’s bowlers had given their side a chance of success by reducing South Africa to 171 for nine. Then Paul Adams, a new spinner whose bowling action was memorably described as a frog in a blender, shared a decisive stand worth 73 with the wicketkeeper David Richardson and England were sunk.
RECORD DAY
The records set by Australia’s Ashton Agar and Phil Hughes against England during the first Ashes Test at Trent Bridge, Nottingham on :
– Agar and Hughes’ partnership of 163 is the highest for a 10th wicket in Tests. It was previously 151, jointly held by New Zealand’s Brian Hastings and Richard Collinge (1973) and Mushtaq Ahmed and Azhar Mahmood of Pakistan (1998).
– Agar’s 98 is the highest score by a Test No 11 – beating West Indian Tino Best’s 95 made against England last year. The previous best by an Australian No 11 was 61 by Glenn McGrath against New Zealand in 2004.
– Agar is the first debutant No 11 to score a Test half-century, the previous highest score was Australian Warwick Armstrong’s 45 in 1902.
– It was only the third time in Test history the 10th-wicket pair have doubled their team’s total. Australia were 117-9 and then 280 all out.
TOP LAST-WICKET PARTNERSHIPS
163 Phillip Hughes and Ashton Agar, Australia v England, 2013
151 Brian Hastings and Richard Collinge, New Zealand v Pakistan 1973
151 Azhar Mahmood and Mushtaq Ahmed, Pakistan v South Africa, 1997
143 Denesh Ramdin and Tino Best, West Indies v England, 2012
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Match info
Australia 580
Pakistan 240 and 335
Result: Australia win by an innings and five runs
World Cricket League Division 2
In Windhoek, Namibia - Top two teams qualify for the World Cup Qualifier in Zimbabwe, which starts on March 4.
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The specs: 2018 Nissan 370Z Nismo
The specs: 2018 Nissan 370Z Nismo
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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.”
Our Time Has Come
Alyssa Ayres, Oxford University Press
Ziina users can donate to relief efforts in Beirut
Ziina users will be able to use the app to help relief efforts in Beirut, which has been left reeling after an August blast caused an estimated $15 billion in damage and left thousands homeless. Ziina has partnered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to raise money for the Lebanese capital, co-founder Faisal Toukan says. “As of October 1, the UNHCR has the first certified badge on Ziina and is automatically part of user's top friends' list during this campaign. Users can now donate any amount to the Beirut relief with two clicks. The money raised will go towards rebuilding houses for the families that were impacted by the explosion.”
