'Major role' for Dubai Sports City in promoting cricket for high performance countries

The ICC Global Cricket Academy, at Dubai Sports City, hosted the CEOs of the High Performance Program (HPP) teams - the top six Associate countries in world cricket that played in the recent International Cricket Council (ICC) World Cup.

Bermuda, Ireland, The Netherlands, Scotland, Kenya and Canada were all represented on the visit, hoping to learn more about the facilities and about Dubai Sports City's plans to support their development.

Executives at the major development are confident that the combination of world-class resources and convenient geographic location will enable Dubai Sports City to provide a training ground and development hub for the High Performance nations.

"Dubai Sports City will be one of the only places in the world where cricketers can train in the exact conditions that they will encounter on overseas tours. For those nations looking to compete in international cricket, it will be a vital resource,"

said U.Balasubramaniam, CEO, Dubai Sports City.

When completed, Dubai Sports City will include a landmark 25,000 seat cricket stadium, the first ICC Global Cricket Academy, as well as providing the new headquarters for the ICC.

One of the unique aspects of the project is the creation of foreign-style cricket pitches, or wickets, to reproduce the exact conditions to be found overseas. In order to create the 28 specialist turf wickets, three different national soil types were imported to Dubai. This investment will enable teams from Europe to practice on Indian-style wickets, and vice versa.

The six CEOs of the HPP teams present at the site visit were Neil Speight, Bermuda; Warren Deutrom, Ireland; Maarten Westermann, Netherlands; Roddy Smith, Scotland; Tom Tikolo, Kenya, and Atul Ahuja, Canada.

Warren Deutrom, CEO, Irish Cricket, commented: "The breadth of ambition of Dubai Sports City is quite breathtaking, as is the speed of development. The fact that so many leading brands in the sports industry are looking to associate themselves with Sports City is proof enough that the state-of-the-art facilities will be seen as a benchmark for the industry in years to come."

Also present were Patrick McCawe, Board Member - Central Districts - New Zealand; Chandika Hathurusinghe, ex-UAE coach, currently coaching Sri Lanka "A" Team; and Richard Done, ICC High Performance Manager.

According to Marc Archer, General Manager of the ICC Global Cricket Academy, the visit indicates the growing recognition of the project within world cricket: "When CEOs from Cricket's top teams are impressed by Dubai Sports City, it's clear that we are headed in the right direction."

"Over the past few weeks, senior cricket administrators and officials from Australia, Pakistan and England have also visited the Dubai Sports City cricket stadium and ICC Global Cricket Academy sites," he added.

Dubai Sports City has also played host to England and Sussex cricketer James Kirtley, who played in the ICC Twenty20 in South Africa.

Cricket is one of the key sports for Dubai Sports City, the cornerstone of the Dubailand project, and the ICC Global Cricket Academy will provide an important global focal point for administrators, curators, umpires, coaches and players.