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The Two Things England Need to Do at Old Trafford

This sports journalism piece was first published on Huffington Post (UK) here.

The second Test between England and Pakistan beginning tomorrow (July 22) at Old Trafford has acquired a strange tension, which is vastly more intense and different from the buzz surrounding the crowd reaction to Mohammed Amir’s return to the stage where he had let the cricketing world down.

The ill feeling, amazingly, has nothing to do with what happened on the pitch for a fluctuating four days, at the end of which Pakistan won by 75 tension runs. What got England’s goat was the visitors’ showmanship after the fall of the last English wicket, in front of thousands of English supporters. The reaction to the act from the host gallery was swift – especially from pacer Tim Bresnan and captain Alastair Cook, who said it would work as a motivation for his team.

But giving the post-match box-office fireworks a miss, one of the reasons why Alastair Cook & Co. lost was because they never believed they were going to lose the test – neither at the beginning of the match nor when they were given a target of 283 to chase in the fourth innings.

And there was a good reason for the confidence. They had just routed Sri Lanka in an easy series win. Add to it their impressive home record in tests this decade.

But they lost – to their own “naive batting”, as Cook put it, and Yasir Shah, in that order. Unless they make a few changes, the result could be repeated.

Play Yasir Positively; Play Seamers Aggressively

There is a difference between ‘going after’ a spinner and playing a spinner with the ‘best foot’. So, the case of Moeen Ali’s horrendous dart at Yasir and Gary Ballance jumping on the sides and getting bowled behind the legs are both prime examples of how not to play a spinner. Jonny Bairstow going to the back foot and getting bowled to a flipper by Yasir is also a form of going after the bowler – because the underlying assumption is that the batsman has got the bowler on the mat and that he can cut the bowler any time.

And yet, the idea is not the opposite – to try to block Yasir away. That was the other extreme that was tried by the English batsmen during the course of the match. Unfortunately for them, they found out that it can’t work for a period spread over 40 overs in an innings.

The best way to play a spinner, as any batting coach would tell you, is to rotate the strike. Yes, with many men around the bat, it isn’t always the easiest of things to do. But that’s when footwork comes into play – something that you ought to possess in a decent amount if you are deemed good enough by your country to face wrist or finger spinners from the Indian subcontinent. A decent footwork allows a batsman to move about the crease while, importantly, covering the stumps in such a way that LBW is taken out of the equation.

Pace bowlers need rhythm to succeed; spinners need that, and a lot of space.

Yasir aside, there is no need to give undue respect to the seam bowlers. If England has to succeed, the batsmen would have to tackle Pakistani pacers aggressively. It should not be impossible for a team that is more used to the mix of pace and swing than most Test-playing nations.

In other words, play Yasir positively and the Pakistani seamers even more so.

Unlock the Resources

James Anderson, who was the world’s number one Test bowler before Yasir Shah overtook him with his exploits at Lords, and Ben Stokes are expected to walk straight into the side after their time out due to injury – replacing Jacob Ball and Steven Finn respectively.

But England needs to bring Adil Rashid in for Moeen Ali – and not just for the ‘that’ shot by the latter in the second innings. Pakistan is filled with right-handers and therefore leggie Rashid offers a much better option than Moeen. Also, Rashid has the confidence of rattling the Pakistani batting line-up once, barely six months ago in Dubai. And he can bat a bit too.

On the other hand, with the pitch at Old Trafford traditionally being receptive to spin bowling, there is a case for playing both of them – at the expense of, perhaps, James Vince. In all honesty, it is a toss-up between Vince and Gary Ballance. But left-handed Ballance should be a better counter to the leg spin of Yasir. Also, he has a better record of the two.

But the most vital part of managing the above resources is the need to unlock – or unclutter – the resources.

Alex Hales, in all fairness, is not going to play for four sessions of a test match in this series. Give him the freedom to express himself without self-doubts about his role as an opener.

The same for Joe Root. He got so bogged down under the pressure of expectations after the departure of Cook in the second innings that it ultimately led to his dismissal. It’s time to remind him that he alone is not expected to win it for England.

On top of that, England will have to fight fire with fire when it comes to expressing it on the field. Get into the Ashes mindset and give it back to the opponent. Most English players would be able to do more push-ups than their Pakistani counterparts. Let it show in the middle.

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Shamed Mourinho Has Unleashed a Beast

The article first appeared on The Huffington Post (UK) here

Chelsea supporters could be forgiven for thinking that in hindsight, the embarrassment of that humiliating FA Cup Round 4 loss to Bradford could well be the most timely potion that destiny could have provided Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho. For a coach who is not the biggest advocate of player rotation, slightly less tired legs of his chosen few could well prove to be the difference in May.

But the script played out slightly differently on a tempestuous Tuesday night – and every limb of the Blue army found itself drained completely out of the last ounce of juice after a massively physical 120 minutes of battle with Liverpool in the second leg of League Cup semi final.

It couldn’t have taken any less to book a place in the March 6 final at Wembley.

If blood and sheer guts in the matches of recent years between these bitter rivals is said to be a legacy of Luis Garcia’s ghost goal in the Champions League semi-final in 2005, this was raising it a notch higher.

Despite Mourinho asking his supporters to stay clear of abusive chants about Steven Gerrard, a bit of that could be heard even before the first kick of the match. The visiting stands fell not much behind in letting the world know what they thought of Costa. Mourinho clashed furiously with the officials over many decisions; the two benches clashed occasionally; the referee clearly lost the plot by a series of curious decisions (including a clear penalty shout against Skrtel’s tackle on Costa); and the players ran, tackled, fell, rose up, shot and ran like this was the last match ever to be played.

Each one of the 38 tackles by Liverpool and 28 by Chelsea was hard and uncompromising – nine of which led to yellow cards. It was breathless tenacity and steel at show in every corner of the pitch.

The nature and intensity of the game was summed up in typical Mourinho style after the match when he praised the game’s only goal scorer Branislav Ivanovic:

‘He has lots of blood and the boot is completely full of red blood and it should go straight to the (Chelsea youth) academy.’

Yes, it was that kind of the match.

Almost entirely because the Chelsea team that took the field were clear in the head: Either we play great football and win or we play our last football and win. They managed the former in flashes, but eventually won because Liverpool couldn’t climb and cross the possessed Chelsea bodies.

Brendon Rogers believes otherwise and almost accused Chelsea of playing it bad. In his post-match interaction with media, he said that Chelsea striker Diego Costa ‘doesn’t need to stamp he’s top class’ – a barely veiled dig at the fiery Spaniard for two incidents of, what it looked on camera, deliberate stamping by him. The Liverpool bench believed that the Costa’s studs on Emre Can and Martin Skrtel were worthy of red card.

Mourinho appeared to be livid with that interpretation. But he couldn’t have cared less really. As Petr Cech put it before the match, tonight was a chance ‘to clean up the mess’. The world cannot expect a Bradford to beat Mourinho’s team at home and the team to not react. And further reaction there would be – as January 31 promises the season-deciding showdown in the Premier League.

Current league holders Manchester City should not be surprised if on January 31 they meet a Chelsea team that plays both freely because it is relieved of some pressure and angrily because it feels that the world is responsible for its defeat at the hands of Bradford in FA Cup.

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English Cricket is Losing the Plot

The article first appeared on The Huffington Post (UK) here

It would have been okay if it were just about losing a test match to India at Lords Cricket Ground after 28 years. What should worry the mandarins of the game in its country of birth, however, is the complete lack of purpose and direction of the current team.

Saddled with a captain who is trying to stay put on a slippery slope, the current English team represents everything opposite to the adrenaline-pumping romance of the ‘class of 2005’ that beat the mighty Australians – in what was clearly the best Ashes series of this century, and one of the best series played between any two teams of all times.

Is Moeen Ali the best spinner that England has got – in a series involving the master players of spin no less? If yes, then they might as well play with no spinners, at least against India. But then, he is actually a batsman too. So, is he a middle-order batsman who can either single-handedly save or win the match for England?

And Ben Stokes? If he were into playing cards, three ducks together might have been a good dig. Or, wait; is he in the team for his bowling? Some say he can be a poor man’s Paul Collingwood. Is that the vision?

Similarly, was Michael Atherton right in saying that “a significant English career might have come to an end”, when Matt Prior departed after playing that rather aimless pull shot – of a ball way outside the off stump? Atherton didn’t even mention the 36 byes that Prior let slip through and about his gloves. Did the ECB anticipate such a development so early in the series?

At the beginning of the series, only the ECB and God knew the answers to all of those questions. Now, only God knows.

The point is not about the performance of those two. It may not even be about the approach of ECB towards filling those key slots. Because it would be safe to assume that the English board would not have any reason to go for these players but for the belief that that’s the best it has got.

That, I’m afraid, is the scarier part. There are three more tests to go. Senior pros like Anderson, Broad and Bell – and who knows, even Cook – can still crank up a notch and win something for the team.

But that would merely be putting a blanket over the less than adequate other half portion of the team.

How did things come to such a pass so drastically soon? Wasn’t this the number 1 test team till very recently?

There are either no easy answers or many obvious answers to every crisis question.

English cricket is not sure what it considers cricket! Though England won a T20 World Cup, it neither celebrated it (contrast it with the mind-numbing excess after India’s victory in the inaugural T20 WC), nor built upon it. The lesser said the better about its approach towards the 50-over version of the game. People here in India believe that England does not even want to play the shorter version. And no, the feeling has got nothing to do with the clash of boards about IPL.

But test cricket is its thing. And yet, it is letting itself down on that front too – primarily because of abysmal handling of players. So while a precocious talent like Pietersen is out “because of attitude problems”, players have been leaving the game because of psychological stress. No offence meant, but ask an Indian player what pressure is. Or closer home to English cricketers, ask what Wayne Rooney, John Terry feel like.

We are not even talking about the abrupt retirements of Strauss and Swann.

Where is the player management?

The immediate task for England is simple – do not allow India to win any more tests in the series, and win at least one for itself. However, the bigger challenge would be to prepare a team that wears its heart on its sleeve – just like in 2005. With or without import of talent from South Africa.

Unless Jim Laker would forever be proved correct for his words, “The aim of English cricket is, in fact, mainly to beat Australia.” In that case, be ready for MS Dhoni and his men heap further misery on this English team in the tests ahead.

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The Tricky Business of Permanent Residency

[This article was first published here on The Huffington Post]

The jury is still out on the cost of providing fast-track residency to affluent foreigners

There are many ways in which modern societies are getting shaped across the world. Australia cast its vote recently in favour of crafting one by handpicking well heeled citizens from other countries.

On May 25, Australia’s Immigration Minister Chris Bowen unveiled a new visa scheme that offers wealthy migrants a fast-track residency provided they invest around $5 million into either government bonds or Australian companies.

In the normal course of the procedure, migrants are ranked according to criteria like age, qualifications and English language skills, along with a requirement to reside in the country for a specified period of time before they qualify.

Terming the initiative as an ‘investment visa’ aimed to address shortages of skills and capital and boost job-creation in the country, Bowen said, “People who are willing to make a significant investment in Australia through various investments will receive concessional treatment when it comes to permanent residency.”

“The significant investor visa will provide a boost to our economy and help Australia to compete effectively for high net worth individuals seeking investment immigration,” he added.

The minister said that Australia expects to hand out 7,000 new investment visas through this fast track system, which will come into force on July 1.

The scheme would see Australia join the ranks of Asia-Pacific’s New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore, which provide for migration on the basis of investment of a specified size and conditions.

Under New Zealand’s Investor Residence Scheme, immigrants can gain residency rights in the country by investing NZ$ 1.5 million (US$ 1.1 million) for a period of four years. This program requires the applicant to be under 65 years of age and have three years of business experience.

The Investor Plus Residence Scheme goes a step further and offers permanent residency to anyone who makes an investment of NZ$ 10 million in New Zealand for 3 yrs. No age, business or English language proficiency is required under this program.

In Hong Kong, millionaire migrants can earn residency rights via the Capital Investment Entrant Scheme (CIES) by investing HK$10 million.

But nowhere in the world is the phenomenon more pronounced than in Singapore, which, as per a new report from global management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group (BCG), had the world’s highest density of millionaire households in 2011. The report, released this May, revealed that more than 17% of all households in the Southeast Asian city-state had private wealth of US$ 1 million or higher during the year.

What provides a telling perspective to the ‘badge of honour’ is that according to Singapore government statistics from 2011, Singaporean citizens make up just 63% of the country’s population – implying that more than one in three residents of the city-state are foreign-born permanent residents or temporary residents. Merely 11 years ago the figure was 74%, while in 1980 it was 91%.

Helping the rise of percentage of foreign nationals are government schemes like the Global Investor Programme (GIP), which allow wealthy foreigners to attain permanent residency status if they invest a minimum of $2.5 million in a new business or an expansion of an existing business, and have an annual turnover of at least US$30 million or more.

Permanent Residence visa is highly valued in Singapore among expatriates as the city-state has one of the world’s highest standards of living and is one of the nerve centres of Asia’s economy.

On the other hand, the small population of Singapore, quite like that in Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong, make it necessary for the country to invite foreign entrepreneurs to create new businesses, new products and new jobs – especially in tough economic times such as the present. According to government statistics, Singapore’s fertility rate of 1.2 is well below the replacement rate of 2.1 – implying that the country’s workforce would shrink drastically if more foreigners are not allowed in.

But the upsurge in the ratio of foreign nationals – both permanent residents and foreign workers – has led to a corresponding rise in the disaffection among the locals on the issue.

Many Singaporeans believe that permanent residents come to their country to reap the benefits without any obligations. A prevalent sentiment among the critics of government policies like the GIP is that foreign-born residents take jobs, push up property prices and add new strains on the city-state’s infrastructure. The impression is said to be responsible for the worst ever showing by the ruling party in last year’s elections.

Reacting to popular dissatisfaction, Singapore recently canceled a scheme that allowed wealthy expatriates to gain permanent residency (PR) in the Southeast Asian city-state if they brought in a minimum of S$10 million ($7.8 million) into Singapore for five years including using up to S$2 million on buying a property.

The Financial Investor Scheme (FIS) was brought to an end in April as it was believed that the scheme was used by many expatriates to buy property at inflated prices and fuel the country’s booming property market – thereby pricing locals out of the market.

The decision is seen to be in tune with the government’s decision of imposing an additional 10% property tax on foreigners last year to avoid Singapore becoming a place for only the rich.

But beyond concerns about rising property prices, the red carpet for foreign entrepreneurs has led to people like local Singapore journalist Jaya Prakash believe that the government is biased towards foreigners, allowing them to sweep up jobs that should be given to locals and fill places in schools meant for Singaporeans.

Some groups have even claimed that a large expat population – and its highly visible alternate culture – is threatening their sense of national identity.

Clearly, financial benefits travel only as far as they are allowed to by the socio-political costs of a policy.

Australia may want to learn from Singapore’s experience on the subject and pick the best path ahead for itself.

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An Even Match

[This article was first published here on The Huffington Post]

A November 2011 report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a US congressional advisory panel, urged the White House and US Congress to scrutinize China’s military expansion and pushed for a tougher stance against, what it dubbed as, anticompetitive Chinese trade policies.

While China’s military, which benefited from a threefold increase since the 1990s in the military budget to about US$160 billion in 2010, does not pose a threat to the US, it does so to many nations in the region. Apart from building ports (also known as ‘pearls’) across the Indian ocean that form as its security eyes, China has, over the years, taken measures to boost its control of maritime resources in the East China Sea and the South China Sea.

At the same time, China invested substantial efforts in the last decade in building economic relations with East Asian nations via regional bodies like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the ASEAN+3 (ASEAN, plus China, Japan, and South Korea), and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF).

With the help of the regional arrangements, China is replacing the United States as the economic engine of Asia. It buys up huge amounts of raw materials, goods and parts, and pours in large amounts of foreign investment into its Asian neighbours.

In that backdrop, the US government, in 2011, decided in favour of a renewed focus on Asia by hastening its decisions to forge relations with multilateral organisations in the continent from both economic and military standpoints.

In November 2011, Obama declared that the US hoped by December 2012 to see the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), now being negotiated, become a high-quality trade and investment platform that will include the major economies of the Asia-Pacific.

The principles of TPP, which does not include China in the initial group of countries, greatly differ from China’s approach to trade, and are being structured around values that the US champions in terms of, amid others, transparency and protection of intellectual property.

In the same month, the US formally joined the East Asia Summit (EAS) in Bali, Indonesia. President Obama used his inaugural speech to guide the EAS towards focusing on prickly security issues in the region, especially those involving maritime security. The suggestion was not to Beijing’s liking, but was supported by EAS participants that have disputes with China on the issue of dominion over South China Sea waters and regions.

The US continued its activism in the region in 2011 with a very high-profile engagement with the Myanmar regime in December 2011 via a visit by US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. The visit, the first in 50 years by a US secretary of state to Myanmar, was significant as it marked US having a dialogue with a regime that it not only does not officially recognize – on account of democracy and human rights violations by the military rulers – but also that has been supported by China during the last two decades of political isolation.

Continuing the surge in the region, the office of the US government spokesperson, in a press release in December 2011, informed that the US hosted Japan and India – both traditional rivals of China – for the first ever trilateral dialogue to “exchange views on a wide range of regional and global issues of mutual interest”.

The renewed, and frantic, US interest in the region – from South Asia to the Asia Pacific – and, more importantly, the growing relations between US and other Asian nations has not gone unnoticed in China, naturally.

But even as China has not so far made any comment on the developments, state-run China Daily, reacting to the emerging alliance of Asian nations with the US, reported, “Japan’s cooperation has been moving from bilateral to multilateral, trying to include the United States, Australia and India in its Arc of Freedom and Prosperity.”

It is difficult to predict the Chinese responses in 2012 to the current US crusading in the region. Much will depend upon China’s own economy and the preparedness of the smaller nations in the Asia-Pacific and East Asia to engage further with the US even at the risk of earning China’s wrath.

For the moment, the US is on an overdrive and China is observing the situation. The game is on.

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The Japan-US Alliance is Here to Stay

[This article was first published here on The Huffington Post]

Japan’s ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) came to power in 2009 with the promise of “re-examining Japan’s ties with the United States” and framing a foreign policy with “greater emphasis on Asia.” Less than three years later, anxiety about the steady increase in China’s economic strength, military power and political assertiveness in the region has forced the party to lean back on Japan’s postwar alliance with the US.

Rajiv Bhatia, a former Indian diplomat and visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) in Singapore, said Japan is now trying a “hub and spokes approach” to international alliances, with the US as the hub and partnerships such as those between Japan and India the spokes.

Japan’s DPJ government made some very public moves at the end of 2011 towards a three-way partnership with the US and India. More importantly, it has stated its desire to participate in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a US-backed treaty designed to eliminate all tariffs within 10 years and create a free trade zone covering the entire Asia-Pacific region. The Pacific trade grouping does not currently include China.

The approach leverages the fact while the US remains the world’s largest economy and a vital trade partner for developing economies, Japan is at the heart of emerging Asia’s development assistance landscape, a reality that no Asian nation can disregard. The latest government data from Japan shows the country provided US$2.22 billion in ODA to Asian nations in 2009, making it Asia’s biggest ODA donor. In fact, even in the current phase of Japan’s apparent decline and China’s ascendency, China still receives Official Development Assistance (ODA) from Japan.

Moreover, despite its present wilting economy, Japan remains one of Asia’s pre-eminent economies in industrial, technological and financial terms. A strong alliance with the US makes partnership with Japan even more attractive for other nations in the region.

As if to help Japan in its decision-making, US announced a new defense strategy in December 2011 that proposed a larger US presence in Asia.

All of that allows Japan just the elbow room that it requires to play a fitting role in the region’s geopolitical ballroom — especially at a time when Japan is battling many anxieties, including the challenge to cope with post-Fukushima issues concerning nuclear energy, political instability and economic stagnation.

But DPJ’s unnatural reaffirmation of faith in the order, in which the US acts as a fulcrum for Japan’s geopolitical activities in the region, neither arrived suddenly nor was born out of the economic meltdown in Japan, which worsened after the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear triple disaster.

At the 50-year anniversary celebration of the Japan-US security treaty in January 19, 2010, Hatoyama Yukio, the DPJ’s first prime minister, repeated the DPJ’s election platform calling for a“close and equal” relationship between the two nations and shutting down of an American military base on the island of Okinawa.

But in the wake of increased tensions in the region after the sinking of a South Korean navy ship,allegedly by North Korea, Hatoyama signed a deal with the US President Barack Obama on May 28, 2010 to retain the base for security reasons. It was a move that eventually cost him his post, as he cited the deal as the reason for his resignation on June 2, 2010.

The leaning towards US became near complete in September 2010, when Japan’s relationship with China hit their lowest point in recent years because of Japanese arrest of a Chinese fishing trawler captain near disputed islands in the East China Sea. China reacted angrily by suspending midlevel diplomatic talks and cutting off exports of rare earth metals, which Japan needs to make electronics, a sizeable component of Japan’s economy.

The disputed islands at the center of the controversy, known as the Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese, are believed to be surrounded by oil and gas reserves and have long been a source of friction between China, Japan and Taiwan.

The diplomatic spat over the islands flared up again this month when the DPJ government, to support Japan’s claims to the disputed territories, started allocating Japanese names to the islands. Japan has said it plans to finish naming all the 39 uninhabited islands by the end of March 2012 and place them under the authority of Japanese administrative units.

The naming of the islands may seem inconsequential in the light of its questionable legitimacy, but the move reflects Japan’s acknowledgement of the fast-moving process of Asia’s integration, in which two principal scenarios are likely to play out.

The region could eventually be led by Beijing’s favoured ASEAN+3 (China, Japan and South Korea) community, which could reduce Japan’s role to nothing more than a servant of Beijing. However, any effort by China to establish a Sino-centric order is expected to be met with resistance not only from Japan but also from South Korea and other Southeast Asian nations.

In the second scenario, Japan could leverage its intrinsic economic strength and good relations with major international players to form a grouping that comprises ASEAN+3 and Australia, India and New Zealand, as seen in the Sixth East Asian Summit in Indonesia in November last year. This would allow Japan to play an equal and important role in the community, along with China and India, using India as a counter to any hegemonic intent of China.

Experts believes that it is imperative for Japan to ensure that the second possibility prevails in the region. Already displaced by China as the world’s second largest economy in 2010, the prospect of further tilting of balance between the two nations is generating new unease within Japan.

By 2030 China’s economy is likely to be four times as big as Japan’s. For it to be able to cope with a rival of that stature, Japan realizes that it needs have more nations on its side. For a start, the ruling DPJ has decided to work around its antipathy for the Japan-US security alliance. It is a broken election promise, but may prove to be a good strategic decision in the long run for Japan.