Thursday, Dec 29, 2016

Dubai: The UAE will host one of the biggest Twenty20 tournaments from January 17 with nations including Afghanistan, Ireland and the Netherlands taking part.

The inaugural event — which will be called the Desert T20 tournament — will be contested by eight top associate nations.

The Emiratess Cricket Board (ECB) had recently organised a women’s cricket tournament with seven teams at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium.

This cricket board — which had never organised a men’s or women’s tournaments in the past — has become very active now, inviting teams to use its international standard cricket grounds for tournaments.

A men’s tournament for associate teams is a novelty initiative by ECB.
Zayed Abbas, an ECB member, who also had announced the women’s tournament, believes that a tournament for men will be good exposure for the home team on home grounds. “Emirates Cricket Board are delighted to collaborate with the participating Associates to bring this inaugural T20 tournament to the UAE. The aim of the tournament is to provide an opportunity for our team to play more competitive Men’s T20 cricket,” he said.

Talking about the participating teams, Abbas, who is also the selector of the UAE national team, said: “Each of the participating countries are very close in ICC T20I rankings, so we expect the quality of cricket to be very strong. The associate countries participating are Afghanistan, Hong Kong, Ireland, Namibia, Netherlands, Oman, Scotland, and the UAE.”

The Desert T20 tournament will be a seven-day event and will commence from January 14 at the Abu Dhabi Cricket Club’s Zayed Cricket Stadium. The initial rounds will be held until January 17 there, before shifting to Dubai Sports City’s International Cricket Stadium for the final two-days of the event. The final will be held on January 20.

Following the draw, in Pool A are: Afghanistan ranked ninth, Ireland, ranked 17th, Namibia, which is yet to appear in a ranking and the UAE, ranked 14th. Pool B contains: The Netherlands, ranked 11th, Scotland which is ranked 13th, and Oman ranked 16th. Fifteenth-ranked Hong Kong is also in this group.

“With the world class practice facilities and playing surfaces available to us in the UAE, we are confident each Associate will benefit greatly from this tournament. We extend our sincere thanks to the participating teams, the ICC and the ICC Academy for their support and commitment to this tournament.” said Abbas.

The opening match will be held in Abu Dhabi with Scotland taking on Hong Kong at 2pm followed by Afghanistan against Ireland at 7pm. The Afghanistan match — which is set to attract a huge turn out — has been scheduled for the evening to ensure cricket fans can watch the match after the regular close of business for the day. Day matches in the event will start from 2pm, followed by the second match at 7pm.

The entry for the matches will be free. Recent Afghanistan vs UAE matches have witnessed a large turn out. And a contest for Associate nations will be an ideal platform for these countries to improve their standard.

By K.R. Nayar Chief Cricket Writer

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