From left to right: Vivek Chandra, Director and head of Business at ITW MENA, Mubashshir Usmani, General Secretary of the Emirates Cricket Board and Richard Saldhana, Head of Sales and Broadcasting at ITW MENA, during the launch of the Emirates D10. Chris Whiteoak / The National
From left to right: Vivek Chandra, Director and head of Business at ITW MENA, Mubashshir Usmani, General Secretary of the Emirates Cricket Board and Richard Saldhana, Head of Sales and Broadcasting at ITW MENA, during the launch of the Emirates D10. Chris Whiteoak / The National
From left to right: Vivek Chandra, Director and head of Business at ITW MENA, Mubashshir Usmani, General Secretary of the Emirates Cricket Board and Richard Saldhana, Head of Sales and Broadcasting at ITW MENA, during the launch of the Emirates D10. Chris Whiteoak / The National
From left to right: Vivek Chandra, Director and head of Business at ITW MENA, Mubashshir Usmani, General Secretary of the Emirates Cricket Board and Richard Saldhana, Head of Sales and Broadcasting at

New T10 league to be broadcast live as cricket makes return to UAE


Paul Radley
  • English
  • Arabic

Organisers of the first domestic T10 tournament hope a total of more than two million viewers will tune in to live broadcasts of the new competition.

The Emirates D10 is scheduled to start on Friday July 24, as the sport continues its return after the coronavirus lockdown.

Although individual councils have streamed their competitions in the past, it will be the first time the game’s governing body here have aired one of their own domestic events.

The move comes as a result of a new, three-year deal which sees ITW Consultants become the Emirates Cricket Board’s official commercial partners.

The tournament will feature five teams representing the country's respective cricket councils.

Also included will be an Emirates Blues select XI, comprising many UAE team regulars and led by Ahmed Raza, the national team captain.

With 34 matches in the tournament, lasting until Friday August 7, the organisers hope it will be viewed far and wide.

Vivek Chandra, director and head of business for ITW Middle East, cited a recent tournament aired on Cricket Gateway, the platform which will show the Emirates D10, as having six million views over a two-week period.

He is hoping for “one-third of the viewership of a usual cricket tournament in this region,” which he equates to “two to two and a half million views”.

“For the past three months there has been a lack of live cricket globally, with England and West Indies just starting their [series] a few days back,” Chandra said.

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“We thought it was the right time. We are taking this cricket to everywhere you can imagine. On a digital platform, this will be live and accessible across the globe.

“The idea was to create this tournament commercially, which can become a platform for domestic cricket to thrive in this part of the world.”

Mubashshir Usmani, the ECB general secretary, is urging friends and family of those involved to take up the opportunity to watch the games online, rather than go along in person.

“We want to make the tournament spectator-free, so only involving the concerned people in the teams," Usmani said.

“We do not want spectators at the ground because of the pandemic.

"It will be livestreamed, and that is the best way to watch at the moment, to socially distance and watch from home.

“Covid is something that has affected lots of people around the world, and ECB is not spare of it.

"We are just trying to make the best of it as we possibly can. This is the start of something better.”

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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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