Dubai: In an effort to boost women’s cricket in the UAE, the Emirates Cricket Board and Maxtalent Global Sports launched a development programme recently. The bodies brought together schoolgirls and women in a bid to get them to take up cricket through training sessions meant to highlight the excitement of playing the game.
The programme comes at a time when the UAE women’s cricket team has started winning tournaments abroad — emerging as the GCC Twenty20 Champions twice in succession. The eight-week programme was a huge success, with 14 schools from Ajman, Sharjah and Dubai and approximately 215 girls between the ages of 10 to 14 being trained by the coaches of Maxtalent Global Sports.
Speaking to Gulf News, Sudhakar Shetty, the Head coach of Maxtalent, said: “We have always tried to promote women’s cricket. For the last nine consecutive years we engaged in developing cricket at the grassroot level through Vision Cup inter-schools girls tournaments. We also partnered with Dubai Education Zone to also train UAE national schoolchildren. This women’s development programme was hugely rewarding as the response from the girls and even parents was very rewarding.”
The programme was divided into beginners and grass root player sections. “We made sure that the programme had some fun elements while teaching the basic nuances of the game to make the game attractive. We want everyone to embrace the game seriously,” added Shetty.
After the training programme, a Day Cricket Festival was organised at the ICC Academy, where girls from 14 school teams turned up to display their talents. In the tournament, Dubai Winchester Girls team emerged winners, beating Our Own English Girls High School Sharjah.
Andy Russell, the Emirates Cricket Board’s National Cricket Development manager, said after the match: “There is no doubt that with girls cricket being received so well it will only develop and grow from here. We will continue to encourage and motivate girls with such programmes making it still more interesting to ensure the girls participate regularly.”
