RANCHI // The captains of India and Australia each said they are confident their teams can win the fourth one-day international after rain forced the game to be abandoned at Ranchi.
India started strongly at more than seven per over in their four overs chasing the visitors’ 295 for eight when it started raining, first lightly before intensifying and ultimately ruining the entire play.
“It depended on the first 15 overs. If we didn’t lose too many wickets, the pitch would have become better to bat on,” the India captain MS Dhoni said.
George Bailey (98) and Glenn Maxwell (92) were the stars with the bat for Australia while Mohammed Shami was the stand-out performer with the ball for the hosts.
In reply, Shikhar Dhawan scored three boundaries to set the tone of their chase before rain intervened. Australia lead 2-1 in the seven-game series with the next scheduled for Saturday at Cuttack.
“This could have been a reasonable good game of cricket,” Bailey, Dhoni’s counterpart, said. “There was a little bit of swing and seam … but things went well with the bat.”
The visitors posted a good total thanks to a record, 153-run stand for the fifth wicket between Bailey and Maxwell, who capitalized on numerous missed chances.
Struggling at 71 for four after Shami bowled a fiery first spell, 3-21 in six overs, to run through the top order, Australia recovered well thanks to Bailey and Maxwell, who went past Michael Clarke and Brad Haddin’s fifth-wicket stand of 144 runs in Bangalore in 2007.
Shami (3-42) was the pick of the bowlers while R Ashwin and Vinay Kumar took two wickets each.
“He is deceptive,” Dhoni said in praise of Shami. “He bowls quicker than you think. And in the death he was getting the yorkers in pretty consistently.”
Notable Yas events in 2017/18
October 13-14 KartZone (complimentary trials)
December 14-16 The Gulf 12 Hours Endurance race
March 5 Yas Marina Circuit Karting Enduro event
March 8-9 UAE Rotax Max Challenge
Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
Singham Again
Director: Rohit Shetty
Stars: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Deepika Padukone
Rating: 3/5
Tax authority targets shisha levy evasion
The Federal Tax Authority will track shisha imports with electronic markers to protect customers and ensure levies have been paid.
Khalid Ali Al Bustani, director of the tax authority, on Sunday said the move is to "prevent tax evasion and support the authority’s tax collection efforts".
The scheme’s first phase, which came into effect on 1st January, 2019, covers all types of imported and domestically produced and distributed cigarettes. As of May 1, importing any type of cigarettes without the digital marks will be prohibited.
He said the latest phase will see imported and locally produced shisha tobacco tracked by the final quarter of this year.
"The FTA also maintains ongoing communication with concerned companies, to help them adapt their systems to meet our requirements and coordinate between all parties involved," he said.
As with cigarettes, shisha was hit with a 100 per cent tax in October 2017, though manufacturers and cafes absorbed some of the costs to prevent prices doubling.
What is a robo-adviser?
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Investing in ETFs allows robo-advisers to offer fees far lower than traditional investments, such as actively managed mutual funds bought through a bank or broker. Investors can buy ETFs directly via a brokerage, but with robo-advisers they benefit from investment portfolios matched to their risk tolerance as well as being user friendly.
Many robo-advisers charge what are called wrap fees, meaning there are no additional fees such as subscription or withdrawal fees, success fees or fees for rebalancing.