Asian indices drop as traders await US Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s speech

The Fed released minutes of its July meeting later on Wednesday, which will provide an insight into its deliberations when cutting interest rates for the first time since the financial crisis

Equities stuttered in Asia on Wednesday as investors took a step back after recent gains, with focus now turning to a key speech by Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell on Friday. Rising hopes for China-US trade talks have provided a much-needed lift to markets over the past two days but with few fresh catalysts, dealers are keeping their powder dry ahead of Friday’s address.

After positive signals from US President Donald Trump and some of his top advisers on Monday over progress in the talks with Beijing, and an olive branch with the delay of a ban on Huawei purchases, there have been few developments for traders to buy on.

“Our trade-war headline inspired relief rally appears to have run its course as I suspect there is still a lot of nervousness among US investors as the global economic realities are just too hard to ignore,” said Stephen Innes at Valour Markets. Hong Kong added 0.2 per cent, Shanghai was barely moved and Tokyo ended down 0.3 per cent…

Rishabh Pant has technical issues in keeping wickets: Farokh Engineer

Pant had also scored a blazing hundred, the first by an Indian wicket keeper in Australia

Sports News: Rishabh Pant might have created a new record for an Indian wicket keeper by taking 11 catches in a Test in Australia, but former stumper Farokh Engineer says the Delhi youngster has a lot of technical problems in his primary job, while praising the left hander’s batting heroics.

Engineer said Pant reminds him of his young days.

“His approach is same as M S Dhoni’s. But don’t praise him sky-high at the moment. Encourage him. (But) He’s technically so incorrect,” said the one-time flamboyant wicket keeper batsman at Legends Club’s talk show at the Cricket Club of India here Wednesday evening.

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Pant had also scored a blazing hundred, the first by an Indian wicket keeper in Australia, in the drawn final Test at Sydney to top his record number of catches behind the stumps in the first match of the series at Adelaide.

Pant’s flamboyant batting exploits, however, have impressed Engineer so much that he wondered how the Indian selectors can afford to leave him out in favour of the seasoned Dhoni for this year’s World Cup in England.

“Question is, for the World Cup will you pick Dhoni? How can you drop Pant? He’s done so well. These are the questions for the selectors the three selectors who between them must have played one and a half Tests,” he said, before he was corrected that there was a five-man selection panel now with two more additions to the list.

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Chris Gayle wins $2.21K in defamation case against Australian media group

The all-rounder was accused by Fairfax Media, publisher of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, in a series of stories in the newspapers in 2016

West Indies cricket star Chris Gayle Monday won a Aus dollars 300,000 (USD 221,000) payout from an Australian media group which claimed he exposed his genitals to a massage therapist.

The all-rounder was accused by Fairfax Media, publisher of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, in a series of stories in the newspapers in 2016. They alleged he exposed his penis and indecently propositioned the woman in a dressing room at the 2015 World Cup in Sydney.

Gayle strenuously denied the allegations, claiming at the time that the journalists behind the story wanted to “destroy him”. His teammate Dwayne Smith, who was in the changing room at the time, also denied the incident took place.

He won his defamation case in October last year, with jurors finding Fairfax was motivated by malice and had failed to establish a defence of truth. New South Wales Supreme Court Justice Lucy McCallum said in awarding the payout that being accused of such conduct was “very damaging to Mr Gayle’s reputation”, according to a report in Fairfax newspapers…

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