by Tim Wigmore
Football, with its rich superstars who holiday in the Emirates, is more fitting with the way that Emiratis view themselves. Cricket is associated with India and Pakistan rather than with its English roots.
Alawi Al Braik, one of the few UAE nationals to have played for his country’s cricket team, told me some of his compatriots would be embarrassed to pick up a cricket bat. ‘I was teased for playing the game,’ he said. Like most Arab families in the UAE, Al Braik was brought up with servants. One of those working in his house growing up was a lady from Sri Lanka. She was like a second mother to him. She loved cricket, and when she was looking after the young Al Braik, cricket was on the television. He was hooked in by this strange game straight away.
As he was introduced to the game by a Sri Lankan, it is perhaps not surprising that that his first heroes were from there. He talks of Sanath Jayasuriya and Muttiah Muralitharan with a reverence. Thanks to his father’s influence he was able to meet them as the years went by, travelling to watch them play all over the world. He was coached by Sunil Fernando, the same man who tutored Muralitharan and Kumar Sangakkara.
In a lovely quirk that sport sometimes throws up, his one ODI appearance was against Sri Lanka in 2008. He lasted just three balls before he edged Ajantha Mendis to slip. It was like playing against his big brothers; Al Braik was only 18 at the time. He said Jayasuriya questioned him as to why he didn’t sweep the ball that dismissed him. It was on leg stump, why push at it, his hero and friend asked.
Despite his affinity for Sri Lanka and its cricketers, Al Braik says he is a proud Emirati. In fact this is the reason why he has not played for them in such a long time, and he claims he has been approached. As things stand, the UAE side is not even one where the players can speak the language of the country that they represent.
While it is unlikely that the team will ever be staffed exclusively by UAE nationals, right now it isn’t even close to that. Al Braik says he would not advocate having the entire team made up of UAE nationals, but he feels that more needs to be done to embrace those Emiratis who are playing the game. ‘My argument is not to have all eleven nationals, no, but you’ve got to get three or four guys to be your front image to get the kids [to] start playing.’
Al Braik has created a team called UAE Nationals, a side he claims is very strong at Under-19 and Under-17 levels. He feels that the cricket board ignores them, that it is easier to just concentrate on expats. You don’t need to teach them about the game, they already love it. You don’t have to start from the very beginning, because you have a steady stream of ready-made cricketers arriving in the country all the time.
Perhaps the current make-up of the side is as it should be. If a national team is a reflection of the population, then it makes sense that so many of those who wear the UAE shirt are doing so without being a UAE national. But for Al Braik, the Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) doesn’t want nationals in the team. ‘They do not like to promote the game because once you get nationals in, you get recognition from the government, and once you get the government in, then they start questioning all of the ICC funds and ACC funds.’
Although Al Braik says the government is not involved, this is not completely true. Two years ago Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak, the UAE Minister for Youth and Culture, was made the honorary head of the ECB. This gives the Emirates Cricket Board some government involvement, but Al Braik said that ‘word does not reach’ Sheikh Nahyan.
There is a real feeling among the cricket-playing Emirati that they aren’t wanted; that cricket is, and always will be, an expat sport. This may be the feeling that some have, but there are weekly meetings that take place between ECB management and the Sheikh. If the UAE are playing he tends to be there to watch. Perhaps the perception doesn’t match the reality, but that is something that the ECB needs to address.
Zarawani says that little is done to encourage UAE nationals to play the game. Whereas other sports give equipment and coaching to Emiratis for free, funded by the government, cricket does not do the same. ‘They have achieved having a UAE team and keeping it alive. But it is all expats, but these same expats are not going to stay here forever. They are going to go back to their homeland and they are going to be representing their homeland. This is not achieving anything.’
David East, the chief executive of the Emirates Cricket Board, is well aware that getting local talent playing the game is key to the growth of cricket. His plan is to appoint a national development manager and use that to drive participation upwards, with the hope that this person will be in post as soon as possible. They plan to get into schools and have Emirati ‘champions’ for the sport. Those locals who have played the game to a high level are going to be used to try and raise the game’s profile.
East said they are always looking for new ways to spread the sport among Emiratis. ‘It’s a case of making it accessible to them: we’ve got a number of facilities here, sadly not as many as we would want, but the plan is to get it out to the schools, use Emirati champions to actually get into those communities and demonstrate that it’s actually a really exciting sport to be part of.’ Kabir Khan, former Pakistan player and one-time coach of the UAE, told me, ‘Locals were not interested to play and there were not enough numbers.’
Those living in the UAE certainly aren’t starved of top-level cricket. Since the opening of the Sharjah Stadium in the 1980s the amount and quality of cricket that takes place in the Emirates has only increased. The ICC has its offices and its academy in Dubai. It is the home venue for Pakistan and Afghanistan. In 2014, it hosted the first few games of the multi-million dollar Indian Premier League (IPL) when elections in India meant the Twenty20 behemoth needed a new home. This has been fantastic for expat fans of the game. They have been able to see the best players in the world on their doorstep. Whether it has increased local interest or not, however, is questionable.
East says that the IPL certainly caused a stir among the Emiratis who came to watch the games. ‘The response we had from Emiratis when we were hosting the IPL was quite remarkable, and probably the best way of showcasing cricket to a new audience is something like the spectacle of the IPL.’
The razzmatazz that the IPL brings may well be the kind of event that turns the heads of the locals. It is certainly more easily accessible than a Pakistan Test, where the game unfolds slowly and is a more cerebral enterprise. Twenty20 is seen by many as the gateway drug into a love of cricket.
The issue for the ECB may well be that this amount of cricket actually makes growing the sport and the success of the national side more difficult. The team running cricket in the Emirates is a small one and, as East admitted, they struggle when it comes to fulfilling all of the board’s roles. ‘It is a challenge. We’ve got a very small staff, and we’re trying to juggle an awful lot of things in terms of commitments to the ICC, delivering international cricket, and also developing the game here as well.’
The difficulty is which part of that mix do you say no to? The answer is none of it: you need to get involved in as much as you can, but ultimately it is about funding. Qualification for the World Cup will make a difference in this regard. Performance payments of around $250,000 are made to associates for the four years after they reach a World Cup. This should help to ease the strain for the ECB.
Al Braik told me there is another solution to money problems. ‘Just imagine if we can get Arabs playing, what money we can get involved in cricket.’ David East says he understands this, and he is attempting to bring the local population into the game. Certainly, government funding is something that he is well aware of and is looking to bring into the sport.
The national team reflects the fact that 90 per cent of the population are not UAE nationals. If you live in the UAE but are not a passport holder, the only sports that you can compete in at international level are cricket and rugby. Whereas football is a closed shop in the UAE for expats, with cricket the qualifying is relatively simple. To play for a country other than the one of your birth you need to have li
ved in your new nation for four years. This is the same for all nations, whether full, associate or affiliate members.
This relative ease with which players can qualify for the UAE has actually made it harder for Emiratis to get into the national team. There is a history stretching back 40 years of companies bringing over cricketers as employees to represent company cricket teams. Many of those who appeared for the UAE in the 1996 World Cup found their way into the country through this route. As the demand for expat workers has grown, so has the number of able cricketers. Close to 70 per cent of those who arrive in the UAE to work come from the Asian sub-continent and they bring their love and knowledge of cricket with them.
Cricket is the number one sport in the UAE but not the number one funded game. The top spot is held by football, and that isn’t going to change anytime soon. The level of cricket underneath the international team is relatively high. They are not playing multi-day games but the leagues in the UAE are populated by players with first-class experience elsewhere.
Will Kitchen is the head of the ICC Academy in Dubai, and the high performance manager for cricket in the UAE. For him the issue is not so much a skills gap as an experience gap. While there are talented cricketers in the UAE, many of them within the national setup, none of them play cricket for a living; they are semi-professionals at best. Kitchen is aware of what needs to be done. ‘Our job is to try to bridge that gap, it’s to give them as close to a world-class programme on what in essence is nothing like the budget that English, Australian or Pakistani cricket is operating on.’
Those expats who are in the country to play cricket for their company are primarily answerable to their employers, not the ECB. Kitchen says some of these men are playing 150 games a year. While that is far from ideal, if they refused they would lose their visa and have no right to remain in the country.
‘Ninety per cent of our squad will do a full day’s work in fairly labour-intensive jobs,’ Kitchen said. ‘These aren’t guys that are lawyers, doctors, teachers, they’re guys that work for industrial firms, fairly low-paid, low-skill jobs.’
They will finish a full day’s work and then arrive at Dubai Sports City for four hours of training. So you have a situation in which there are players who could compete at a high level were it not for them having to work full-time to earn a living. A professional cricketer in a full member country has a schedule that prepares them to give their best for game days. In the UAE there is 150 days of cricket, full-time jobs and late-night training, all of which hampers their efforts. They are playing catch-up before they even take the field against more professional outfits.
There are times when a UAE cricketer gets to play at being a full-time pro. During the Australian Test side’s warm-up match against Pakistan A in Sharjah in October 2014, they called upon the services of UAE international Saqlain Haider. He works in a bank but was asked to step in for Brad Haddin to allow the Aussie wicketkeeper some rest ahead of the first Test. That day, instead of counting cash he was catching Mitchell Johnson thunderbolts. They even let him keep the Australian squad training kit but he also had bruised hands as a souvenir.
Speaking with the ESPNCricinfo website, he showed off his swollen palms and said, ‘It hurt me, see! [Johnson] is a very speedy fast bowler. It was the first time I’ve experienced that in my life, 150-plus I think. I learnt many things from that. He is a very good fast bowler.’
Another of those juggling a full-time job with an international cricket career is the UAE captain, Khurram Khan. He is a flight purser, a job that sees him working long shifts flying around the world. He has been in the UAE since 1996, arriving from Pakistan after finishing university. He came to the Emirates for work but he had also been told that cricket was being played at a pretty high standard. By 1999 he had got his job with Emirates Airlines and was recruited on to their cricket team. By 2001 he was qualified as a UAE player and was travelling to play in a tournament in Canada, the first ICC Trophy.
Khan turns 44 in June 2015 but he is as driven as ever. As a top-order batsman, spin bowler and captain of the side he is always involved in a match. Watching him play, you start to wonder if there is a portrait of him in an attic that is getting older while he stays young. The UAE’s very own Dorian Gray.
For Khan, the biggest challenge is that he is not playing cricket full-time. ‘After finishing our jobs, some of us are working in shifts; some of us are working office nine-to-five kind of duties and having to drive to practice,’ Khan said. ‘And some are coming from Abu Dhabi, which takes more than one hour to drive’.
This isn’t a once-a-week deal; they are training five times a week. These men have families and social lives that they have to put on hold for them to fulfil their cricketing ambitions. ‘I think you don’t get even enough time for yourself and the family,’ Khan tells me. This is the sacrifice that these cricketers have to make if they are going to compete with full-time cricketers from associate nations, let alone the infinitely better-funded full members.
The man in day-to-day charge of these cricketers is former Pakistan international, Aaqib Javed. Javed played for Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s, appearing in 22 Tests and 163 ODIs. Following his retirement he moved into coaching. He was involved with Pakistan age-group cricket for many years, taking a team to the Under-19 World Cup in 2004. From 2008 until 2012 he was the bowling coach for the full Pakistan national side. He was offered the role of head coach with the UAE and at first he was reticent. He had never worked with amateur sides, having always been involved in the Pakistan coaching set-up. However, when he mentioned the chance of moving full-time to Dubai to his wife and daughter, they told him he should take it. The life they could have in the Emirates was a massive attraction for them.
Javed was not delighted with what he saw when he arrived. ‘It wasn’t promising, because when I saw the team I got really disappointed, because once you’re sharing a dressing-room with people like Younis Khan, Misbah-ul-Haq, Shahid Afridi, Umar Gul, all the top stars, and the next day you’re sitting with amateurs.’
He soon realised that there was a lot of work to be done, and while he had immediate buy-in from those in charge, the players were less keen. The only time that they had to train was in the evening after they had finished work. They were tired and not delighted about being pushed to their limits.
He asked for three months. He said that they would be tired at first, but the harder they trained, the less tired they would be. ‘Thankfully, after three months, they realised that it was working well, because in three months some of them lost about four to six kilos, and eventually they realised that you can’t achieve anything without hard work.’
The results that Javed has achieved have been impressive. When qualification for the 2011 World Cup was at stake the UAE finished seventh and nowhere near the big prize. At the 2013 World Twenty20 qualifier, just a year into Javed’s time in charge, his side secured a place at the World Twenty20. At the 2014 World Cup qualifier the UAE finished second, losing to Scotland in the final but winning a World Cup spot and ODI status. There is no doubt that standards are improving. Whether they can continue this upward trend without a further move towards professionalism is the real question.
That is the way Javed wants to take things. ‘Now I’m really satisfied because we are striving to making up a semi-professional team. In a couple of years I’m looking to make the UAE team a full professional set-up.’ He talks of how David East understands the ethics of running a cricket board. He says how Will Kitchen’s experience at the England and Wales Cricket Board has been vital to his side. Javed is delighted with how it is all going. ‘We used to have no proper trainer or analyst, or skills coaches. Now I’m really satisfied that the people who are working around us, we have a full staff. We’ve got a good set-up now. I am really happy with the way we are moving forward.’
Khurram Khan says he is extremely happy with the direction the team has taken under Javed. ‘I’ve never done so much hard work in my life, and I’m doing it at t
his age!’ Khan said. ‘[Javed] is very positive first of all. He’d say something, he’d really want it to happen, he wouldn’t just say things for the sake of saying them. So he doesn’t stop, he never stops.’
Cricket in the UAE has a massive following. There is a ready-made audience for the sport, excellent facilities and year-round sunshine. There is a wealthy population and a growing middle class. The IPL showed how the local population can buy in to the game.
The standard of the national team is improving all the time as the number of excellent cricketers who decide to make the Emirates their home increases. The ICC is based in the UAE and there is a real chance to make cricket the sport of choice for everyone; all it needs is the will and the money for it to happen. The funds are there in the UAE, but in order for it to flow into cricket, the game needs to capture the imagination of the local population.
UAE cricket has been a victim and a beneficiary of the country’s appeal as a destination for expats. The number of building projects, jobs and opportunities, albeit tempered by the global economic downturn, has meant that nationals have been sidelined by more experienced players from countries where cricket is more established. As cricketers from the Asian sub-continent have arrived, they have filled up the spots in the national squad. The four-year qualifying period means that in a short space of time someone can find themselves in the national squad. That spot is one that could have been given to a UAE passport holder.
Those who care about cricket on either side of this local/expat divide care about the game deeply; the challenge for all those involved is to bring the sides together. It is impossible for the game to grow and succeed without both expats and locals. The ‘foreigners’ bring experience and talent, the locals bring Emirati interest, funding and sustainable growth.