From the time when cricket lovers from all over the world would congregate in Sharjah to watch the top cricket players in the world slug it out, cricket has been a hugely popular sport in the UAE. The nation has had a national side since 1994 and also qualified for the 1996 World Cup thereafter. While the national team has displayed patchy form over the years, the country's love for the game has not waned. Its probably a natural consequence of things that a UAE international T20 league should be formed!
Also referred to as The Abu Dhabi T20 Trophy, this event is something that all cricket fans in the UAE are delighted about. The ICC has given its go ahead to this franchise cricket tournament in June 2018 and it will have five participant teams.
According to some reports, there will be five teams competing for the top spot later this year: the Boost Defenders of the Shpageeza Cricket League (organised by the Afghanistan Cricket board), the Hobart Hurricanes of the Big Bash League (an Australian pro T20 cricket league), Lahore Qalandars of the Pakistan Super League (which comprises 6 teams), Titans of the Ram Slam T20 Challenge (a T20 event in South Africa), Yorkshire Vikings of the T20 blast (England and Wales based league). However, this is not the final list of teams; which will be announced later.
This will be the first T20 event in the UAE and will include star international players as well as local UAE players. It will be a 22 match format and will be played over 24 days in December 2018 /January 2019. The matches will be played in Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Dubai accoding to an announcement made by the Emirates Cricket Board.
Each of the teams will have 16 men in the squad. These will include 6 international star players, two emerging players from ICC full member countries (England and Wales, Ireland, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, New Zealand, South Africa and the West Indies) as well as associate members and three players from the UAE.
According to Zayed Abbas, ECB Board Member and Official Spokesperson, this event will help in developing cricket in the UAE. “We are confident that this new event will play a big role in growing the game, inspiring, promoting and developing the sport in order to add to the already world-leading UAE cricketing and sporting landscape," he was reported as having said
With star players from several differrent countries participating in this tournament, expats from various nations will get to watch stars from their home countries in action and to cheer them live!
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