Dubai: Former Pakistan all-rounder Mudassar Nazar, who featured in the first ever international match at Sharjah Cricket Stadium, believes the historic venue will steadily regain its place as a major hub for international cricket in the near future.
The famed stadium which holds the distinction of having staged more One-Day International matches than any other ground (200) received a massive boost last week when it was announced that it would host the third and final Test between Pakistan and Sri Lanka scheduled to begin on November 3.
The fixture will be Sharjah's first match featuring top international sides after an eight-year gap and Nazar, head coach at the ICC Global Cricket Academy in Dubai, who played in several memorable matches at the venue during its glory days, including its debut international in 1984, has hailed the news.
"I'm really happy international cricket is coming back to Sharjah because it has hosted so many matches, in fact, the most number of One-Day International matches," a delighted Nazar told XPRESS.
"I've been involved in some close matches at Sharjah at the height of my career. Then at the end of my career, we used to come there to play a couple of tournaments. It used to be the highlight of the year playing against India and there were also some exciting matches against the West Indies," he added. "It's given so much to fans of India and Pakistan and also fans from all over the world, so it's only right that it will once again stage a top international match."
The entire stadium has been undergoing renovation for over a month now in order to be ready for the clash between the two sub-continent rivals later this year, which Nazar believes will be just the start of Sharjah's revival.
"I see it as a soft opening. Once the ground is in good condition it will return to what it was before," he said, suggesting a revamped Sharjah could particularly assist his native country who have been using the UAE as their adopted home ever since international teams stopped visiting Pakistan following a terror attack on the touring Sri Lankan team in 2009.
"I'm sure international cricket will return in full swing. Pakistan need help from our side and it's also beneficial for them to come here. They would never be short of support from spectators and the soil for the pitches is also from Pakistan. You can't say it is as good as home, but let's say as near to home as it gets."
Interestingly, Nazar was also a part of the first Test match to be played in Sharjah back in 2002 as he was coach of the Pakistan team which beat the West Indies by 170 runs enroute to a 2-0 series win.
It was a contrasting story for the Pakistanis on the last two occasions that they and Test cricket graced Sharjah later that year, as they crashed to successive innings defeats against Steve Waugh's all-conquering Australians.
However, Nazar agreed his most cherished Sharjah outing was the 1986 AustralAsia Cup final which featured Javed Miandad's last-ball six off Indian bowler Chetan Sharma which gave Pakistan one of their most famous victories.
"That one definitely sticks to mind," said Nazar who only scored five runs in that game. "We were all very confident as we knew that if anyone could do it, it was Javed. I would have been very surprised if he had failed."
