UAE is interested in holding T20 World Cup - David East

UAE is interested in holding T20 World Cup - David East

David East, CEO of Emirates Crick­et Board, admits the UAE would be interested in holding the World T20 tournament.

The UAE, Pakistan’s de facto cricket home since 2009, success­fully hosted 20 matches of the IPL this year and made it known to or­ganisers they would be interested in following that by also bringing the Champions League here.

That could still happen in the future but with three world-class grounds in the Sheikh Zayed Sta­dium, Dubai International Stadium and Sharjah Cricket Stadium, East wants to attract more international events to the country.

East claims three stadiums will not be enough to accommodate the 50-over World Cup but is enough to accommodate the T20 version.

East, who is set to speak at Host Cities in Dubai which runs November 26-27, said: “We’d be delighted to have it, whether you could do a full World Cup with just the three venues is probably doubt­ful, but you could certainly do a T20.

“The future tours programme is pretty much finalised and they have projected all the global events through to the 2020’s, so it wouldn’t be for a while, but with the contin­ued development of the UAE, new infrastructure, who knows? This is a very important place for cricket.”

The 2016 edition of the tourna­ment will be in India, and 2020 for Australia meaning the UAE could bid for the 2018 competition.


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