With both leagues less than a month from starting, the friction between the Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) Pakistan Super League (PSL) and the Masters Champions League (MCL) shows no signs of abating.
On Wednesday, the PCB said that the only Pakistani players who will be given No Objection Certificates (NOCs) to play in the MCL will be those who have “announced and confirmed their irrevocable resignation and retirement from international cricket”.
The board, the statement continued, wants such a notice in writing, and says any such exit will not affect their status in domestic cricket. The board was responding, it said, to “requests for NOCs from various Pakistan cricketers”.
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There are a fair number of Pakistani players in the MCL, though few, if any, could harbour realistic hopes of representing Pakistan again. Even the two players from the pool to have played most recently for Pakistan, the opener Taufeeq Umar and the all-rounder Abdul Razzaq, are unlikely to be recalled.
Umar, who is with Libra Legends in the MCL, played a Test in November 2014, while Razzaq, an icon player at Capricorn Commanders, played his last Twenty20 for Pakistan a year before that.
What it does, however, is highlight once again the lack of clarity over the exact status of many players who will take part in the MCL. When it was first announced, in June 2014, it was assumed to be a league for veterans, former players who had retired from all forms of the game.
But gradually, that assumption has proved incorrect. As the recent players’ auction for the league showed, it is actually a mixture of long-retired veterans as well as currently active domestic cricketers who have not retired from international cricket per se, but just have not played recently.
These include players such as Richard Levi, Fidel Edwards, Krishmar Santokie, Graham Onions and several others. No doubt the flexible qualification policy is a result of worries that a genuine veteran league might not sustain enough interest beyond a few matches.
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Where this leaves Pakistani players, especially Razzaq who is also a supplementary pick for the Lahore Qalandars in the PSL, is not clear. As Zafar Shah, chairman of the MCL, confirmed, an NOC would be required in Razzaq’s case.
"This is part of ICC regulations and every player must have an NOC to play in our tournament," Shah told The National. "Those people who are retired from all forms do not need but those in domestic cricket still do need it."
There were suggestions from within the PCB that other Pakistani players, who did not get picked for the PSL, had also been approached by the MCL. Shah denied those claims.
“No, not at all. Why should we approach them? Our gates are closed, our squads are selected.”
There are other non-Pakistani players who could play in both the MCL and PSL, such as Kumar Sangakkara. But in their case, the PCB has agreed that they will only join the PSL once their commitments with the MCL are over.
The two leagues have been locked in a quasi-adversarial position almost from the off. At one point, the PSL was on the verge of moving to Doha because the dates for both leagues in the UAE were clashing.
Ultimately they reached a compromise that saw the MCL move its scheduled dates a little earlier. But the leagues will still overlap by nine days and the fact that both are being played only in Dubai and Sharjah, and not Abu Dhabi, further intensifies the sense of the clash.
The fear of their product being diluted is what the PCB said in their statement had resulted in this policy.
“Keeping in view this direct clash in dates and venues and the resulting consequence that any Pakistani players featuring in the MCL pose a direct competition to the PSL and the PCB, the policy did not allow for NOCs to be issued freely to Pakistani players wishing to participate in the MCL and instead a criteria was put in place,” it said.
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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.”
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