The love and passion for cricket in the UAE has been given a lofted six by the expatriates, who by day, work their normal jobs and train during night to feed their passion for the game.
The UAE team brushed shoulders with the world’s best cricketing nations at the ICC World Cup 2015. That is a testimony to prove how strong the passion is in UAE.
A flight purser along with normal working class men, now turned cricketers, toiled hard to get UAE on the global cricketing platform.
Going back in time, I clearly remember on Thursday nights a number of expatriates played cricket outside the famous Sharjah cricket stadium. I was amused to see Indians and Pakistani’s play the whole night despite having their hectic day jobs.
The UAE has been playing host to Test playing nations for the past several years. I’ve seen Australia, Pakistan, New Zealand, England and Sri Lanka who have played with their best stars drawing crowds to the Dubai Cricket Stadium during that period.
Though India has never played in UAE since 2009 and will never play I was told due to security concerns in the UAE. The passion always ran high during the India-Pakistan clash which has left the authorities to deal with security issues in their country.
India and Pakistan fans have always comprised the large chunk of the stadium crowd, giving the cash rich sport a tremendous boost and even forcing the government to take a closer look at the game.
I remember speaking to Waleed Bukhatir, the executive committee member of the Emirates Cricket Board (ECB), in the UAE. He showed keen interest in the UAE team and cricket. He is an Emirati (citizen of UAE) who is in a powerful position and now uses his office to promote cricket in a big way.
Bukhatir, who is also vice-chairman of Sharjah Cricket Council and chairman of Al Dhaid Cricket Village and ECB Domestic Cricket Development Committee, has come a long way to boost budding cricketing talent in the UAE.
Shyam Bhatia is another leading Indian businessman in Dubai who is pushing cricket hard by patronizing cricket tournaments and his passion for the sport has led him to actually build a cricket museum in Dubai. I remember him showing me around his museum and he proudly displayed souvenirs from leading cricketers and fondly recalled those moments. I also had the pleasure of meeting India’s cricketing legend Sunil Gavaskar, who was the guest of honour at Shyam Bhatia’s event. Gavaskar, in an informal chat proudly noted that cricket is indeed gaining popularity in the UAE.
India’s former captain Saurav Ganguly and England’s Monty Panesar have been brushing shoulders in the tournament organised by the Emirates at the Sevens ground in Dubai.
The Emirates Twenty20 is a four-team T20 tournament played annually in Dubai featuring the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) XI and, typically, three English County Cricket sides.
The tournament usually features big-name players on the MCC team and at least a handful of notable figures from the English county scene.
Saurav seemed comfortable playing here and made no bones playing with lesser known teams and personalities. The event had Pakistani stars like Shahid Afridi who was a crowd puller like Saurav.
This year on Friday, March 20, Yorkshire will play Lancashire in the opening fixture before the MCC Xi take on Sussex. The MCC squad is headlined by India’s Yuvraj Singh, along with England’s Test captain Alastair Cook.
Cricket has come of age in the UAE with such big stars adding to the team list and the Associates are now infused with a new surge to excel despite their poor showing against the world’s best cricketing nations. They want to prove to the world that they are down in the World Cup but not lost out on cricket!
