The Dubai Cricket Council's (DCC) initiative to stage an indoor cricket tournament will open a new era in domestic cricket.
With the International Cricket Council having one of the finest indoor cricket facilities in the world, this move will give a big boost to hundreds of cricketers in the UAE who have specialised in indoor cricket.
Speaking to Gulf News, Dayle Hadlee, Head Coach of the Global Academy who formulated the special rules for the tournament, said: "Indoor cricket is popular worldwide. There is [a] huge amount of interest and enthusiasm for it. It is also an opportunity for the cricketers to use the excellent facilities we have here."
Elaborating on the rules, Hadlee said: "Depending on the facility, rules too changes. In some places indoor cricket is played without much running between the wickets due to shortage of space, but here we have a huge facility that they will have to run to score runs."
Incidentally, even if a batsman hits a six or a boundary, it will be counted only if he runs a single.
All matches will be 16 over per side. Each batting pair will bat for four overs and five runs will be deducted for each dismissal. Until now, indoor cricket was confined to Insportz, which regularly hosted tournaments. Danube team has so far been the best.
Huge success
Former Test Mudassar Nazar, who conducted the draw, said: "The indoor cricket will be a huge success as we have excellent surface. I used to practice indoor while in England and improved my bowling a lot. The extreme weather in UAE will help cricketers not to lose out on practice."
Ekta Hutton, the Global Academy general manager said: "We were astounded by the response with over 25 teams wanting to play. For a start we had to restrain to 12 teams and will include more teams for Ramadan indoor tournament."
