Dubai Cricket Council regains its ‘identity’

Dubai: After being without a roof on its head for eight years, the Dubai Cricket Council (DCC) is going to get an address of its own. The revamped DCC committee, under Ameen Farooq as the new honorary secretary, has set up an office at the Dubai Silicon Oasis.

“It is important to have an address for the council which we lost nearly eight years ago and hence we have set up an office. Our hunt for grounds exclusively for the council has begun but before that, we thought we need to have a place where we can sit and plan our activities,” Farooq told Gulf News. The DCC office, alongwith the grounds at the Al Jadaf area, were taken over for the construction of the Dubai Health Care City.

The driving force behind the setting up of the office is Shiva Pagarani, the convenor of DCC finance and administration. “The DCC office is now located at Park Avenue Office building in Dubai Silicon Oasis. Our flat number is 301 and will be the centre for Dubai cricketers’ activities. It will be a full-fledged office with full time staff, operational from 10.30am till 7pm every day,” said Pagarani.

This council was the busiest among all the cricket councils in the UAE, staging 900 matches a year and had 1,700 registered players before losing its seven grounds, including two turf wickets.

“We are in the process of creating a Wall of Fame in the office with photographs and historic moments of DCC from the beginning. It will also have a shelf with all the mementos and trophies of the DCC. All our future team meetings and umpiring seminars will be held here. Teams hereafter can register their teams and players from this office,” added Pagarani.

Farrukh Siddiqui, who was in charge of the DCC office eight years ago, will resume his role and will be available for interaction with teams and update on DCC activities.

The DCC launched its activities for the new season with their inter-school tournament which had to be stopped six years ago due to lack of grounds. “We will follow this tournament with the Inter Academy tournament. We have also plans to host our A division 50 over event and Twenty20 tournament. The Chairman’s Cup 30 over event which will have to be played wearing traditional white attire and red ball is also being planned. We will now focus on our dream of getting our own ground,” said Pagarani.

The official opening ceremony of the DCC offices will be conducted by Abdul Rahman Falaknaz, the chairman of the DCC, in the last week of October.