The DP World International League T20 might reserve admission for only a few UAE-based players. But every so often, it can still turn out to be a dream factory for local lads.
When Farhan Khan first found out he was selected for the UAE’s T20 franchise tournament, he was so shocked he fell out of bed.
The uncapped 20-year-old seam bowler was idling about on the top bunk of his room when he received the message that has changed the arc of his cricket career.
“I was not having such a good T10 season personally and had gone back home to Pakistan for a brief while to work on myself, my diet and my fitness,” said Farhan, who is originally from Peshawar.
“I played a bit in Pakistan too but without much success and I really thought I would not be able to make it to the ILT20 this time. In fact, when I first got to know that I was selected for Dubai Capitals, I couldn’t believe it.
“It was around noon when I got the message from the team manager, and I literally fell off my bed on the upper bunk. I share a room with three others and one of my mates was sleeping below at the time.
“I woke him up from his sleep to tell him what just happened. He was the first person who I told about my selection. I was ecstatic. It was a pure goosebumps moment for me.”
After his roommates, he quickly set about notifying his nearest and dearest back at home. “I had actually prepared my family for the worst – that I may not be picked for the ILT20 because I knew everything depended on performances,” he said.
“But when I told them about my selection, it was a different kind of happiness for me. The like I had never seen or felt before. My mum was elated to hear the news and said she felt proud of me.”
Playing against some of the stars of the global game, in immaculately appointed stadiums, in front of live TV audiences is a world away from what Farhan is used to.
The lanky fast bowler started out playing in the street as a kid where “I got hooked on to the sport”.
“Initially there was not much support back home like in the case of most Pathan families, but when I started playing well, they took notice,” he said.
“When others told my dad about my cricketing prowess, he heard them and let me play tape-ball cricket. Eventually, I joined an academy and moved up the ranks.”
One of his cousins was playing for Seven Districts, a leading UAE club team based in Ajman, and smoothed the path for Farhan to join him.
He quickly started turning heads in domestic cricket, and caught the attention of Ahmed Raza, the former national team captain who now holds coaching positions in both the UAE and Dubai Capitals setups.
“I kept an eye on him during the D-series, which is our premier tournament,” Raza said of Farhan. “He impressed me and everyone who had a look at him. He is young, tall, has a clean action and swings the ball. He also bowls in different phases on T20 games.”
Raza discussed the new find with the rest of the Capitals’ management and, after they had the chance to watch him live in the ILT20’s development tournament, they made it a priority to select him for the main event.
“We were clear about wanting to pick him because he is special in terms of what he has to offer in a T20 game,” Raza said.
“Everyone saw that in the first game. He bowled up front, then came back and bowled the last over against arguably the best finisher in the world, Kieron Pollard. He delivered, and I think he is going to go from strength to strength.
“From a UAE perspective I think it will be about how we can preserve him until he qualifies for UAE. Hopefully he can do great things for the franchise and for the country in the future.”
If Farhan ever daydreamed about playing big-time cricket, it might have gone down in similar fashion to the first game of this season’s ILT20, between the Capitals and defending champs MI Emirates.
It was Farhan’s first match of any note in professional T20 cricket, and the rookie was given the responsibility of bowling the last over of the match.
He needed to defend 13 to win the game. A nervy task, no matter who is at the other end. It just so happened that the player Farhan was going up against was the batter who has played more T20 games than anyone else in history.
Kieron Pollard is closing in on 700 matches in the format. He has played for over 20 major teams, in leagues all across the world. The contrast between the two players could not have been any greater.
“I was under pressure playing my first game at an international level,” Farhan said.
“And then I was not used to playing in front of such a big crowd. My first two overs were not at all good and I thought I wouldn’t get another over, let alone the final over.
“But just when I was about to change my fielding position before the final over, I got a shock as I got called to bowl. Up against me was a man who’s hit over 900 sixes and is one of the best finishers in the T20 game. I was in a state of disbelief.”
Sikandar Raza, the Capitals captain, had used up the allocation of his more experienced bowlers, and was left with his untested debutant to bowl the decisive six balls.
“They were only five or six down, so I wanted to trust my senior guys first,” Sikandar said. “We only needed a couple of dots, and I knew that if we held our lines and lengths, we had a chance.”
The equation became six required off the last ball. Pollard swiped a length delivery from Farhan to the long-on boundary – and it bounced just inside the rope.
“I just can’t believe that I defended 13 runs against Pollard,” Farhan said. “Even when I was about to bowl the last ball with six runs [remaining for MIE to win] I knew anything could happen. I still can’t believe it.”
With victory secured, Farhan was swamped by euphoric teammates. “When I came to bowl the last over, Sikandar bhai told me to keep believing. He said, ‘You can do it.’ He really boosted my confidence well,” Farhan said.
“The reaction [after the win] was strange. For a moment, I thought it was a six because the ball had gone for a boundary after just one bounce.
“When I looked up, I saw Sikandar bhai rushing towards me. He came and hugged me and then everybody else came around and hugged me. It was like a dream.”
The story of Edge
Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, established Edge in 2019.
It brought together 25 state-owned and independent companies specialising in weapons systems, cyber protection and electronic warfare.
Edge has an annual revenue of $5 billion and employs more than 12,000 people.
Some of the companies include Nimr, a maker of armoured vehicles, Caracal, which manufactures guns and ammunitions company, Lahab
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White hydrogen: Naturally occurring hydrogen
Chromite: Hard, metallic mineral containing iron oxide and chromium oxide
Ultramafic rocks: Dark-coloured rocks rich in magnesium or iron with very low silica content
Ophiolite: A section of the earth’s crust, which is oceanic in nature that has since been uplifted and exposed on land
Olivine: A commonly occurring magnesium iron silicate mineral that derives its name for its olive-green yellow-green colour
UAE v Ireland
1st ODI, UAE win by 6 wickets
2nd ODI, January 12
3rd ODI, January 14
4th ODI, January 16
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.”
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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The Africa Institute 101
Housed on the same site as the original Africa Hall, which first hosted an Arab-African Symposium in 1976, the newly renovated building will be home to a think tank and postgraduate studies hub (it will offer master’s and PhD programmes). The centre will focus on both the historical and contemporary links between Africa and the Gulf, and will serve as a meeting place for conferences, symposia, lectures, film screenings, plays, musical performances and more. In fact, today it is hosting a symposium – 5-plus-1: Rethinking Abstraction that will look at the six decades of Frank Bowling’s career, as well as those of his contemporaries that invested social, cultural and personal meaning into abstraction.
Who's who in Yemen conflict
Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government
Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
Nepotism is the name of the game
Salman Khan’s father, Salim Khan, is one of Bollywood’s most legendary screenwriters. Through his partnership with co-writer Javed Akhtar, Salim is credited with having paved the path for the Indian film industry’s blockbuster format in the 1970s. Something his son now rules the roost of. More importantly, the Salim-Javed duo also created the persona of the “angry young man” for Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan in the 1970s, reflecting the angst of the average Indian. In choosing to be the ordinary man’s “hero” as opposed to a thespian in new Bollywood, Salman Khan remains tightly linked to his father’s oeuvre. Thanks dad.
Profile of Bitex UAE
Date of launch: November 2018
Founder: Monark Modi
Based: Business Bay, Dubai
Sector: Financial services
Size: Eight employees
Investors: Self-funded to date with $1m of personal savings
Blackpink World Tour [Born Pink] In Cinemas
Starring: Rose, Jisoo, Jennie, Lisa
Directors: Min Geun, Oh Yoon-Dong
Rating: 3/5
Learn more about Qasr Al Hosn
In 2013, The National's History Project went beyond the walls to see what life was like living in Abu Dhabi's fabled fort:
Things Heard & Seen
Directed by: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini
Starring: Amanda Seyfried, James Norton
2/5
Kathryn Hawkes of House of Hawkes on being a good guest (because we’ve all had bad ones)
- Arrive with a thank you gift, or make sure you have one for your host by the time you leave.
- Offer to buy groceries, cook them a meal or take your hosts out for dinner.
- Help out around the house.
- Entertain yourself so that your hosts don’t feel that they constantly need to.
- Leave no trace of your stay – if you’ve borrowed a book, return it to where you found it.
- Offer to strip the bed before you go.
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Boulder shooting victims
• Denny Strong, 20
• Neven Stanisic, 23
• Rikki Olds, 25
• Tralona Bartkowiak, 49
• Suzanne Fountain, 59
• Teri Leiker, 51
• Eric Talley, 51
• Kevin Mahoney, 61
• Lynn Murray, 62
• Jody Waters, 65
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UK’s AI plan
- AI ambassadors such as MIT economist Simon Johnson, Monzo cofounder Tom Blomfield and Google DeepMind’s Raia Hadsell
- £10bn AI growth zone in South Wales to create 5,000 jobs
- £100m of government support for startups building AI hardware products
- £250m to train new AI models
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Qyubic
Started: October 2023
Founder: Namrata Raina
Based: Dubai
Sector: E-commerce
Current number of staff: 10
Investment stage: Pre-seed
Initial investment: Undisclosed
DUBAI WORLD CUP CARNIVAL CARD
6.30pm Handicap US$135,000 (Turf) 2,410m
7.05pm UAE 1000 Guineas Listed $250,000 (Dirt) 1,600m
7.40pm Dubai Dash Listed $175,000 (T) 1,000m
8.15pm Al Bastakiya Trial Conditions $100,000 (D) 1.900m
8.50pm Al Fahidi Fort Group Two $250,000 (T) 1,400m
9.25pm Handicap $135,000 (D) 2,000m
The National selections
6.30pm: Gifts Of Gold
7.05pm Final Song
7.40pm Equilateral
8.15pm Dark Of Night
8.50pm Mythical Magic
9.25pm Franz Kafka
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England's Ashes squad
Joe Root (captain), Moeen Ali, Jimmy Anderson, Jofra Archer, Jonny Bairstow, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Sam Curran, Joe Denly, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, Olly Stone, Chris Woakes.
