UAE T20x’s commencement and future on dilemma as Emirates Cricket Board decided to shelve UAE T20x.
As per www.thenational.ae, Emirates Cricket Board is concerned about the conflict of interest between its new league and attractive cricketing event in future. It was scheduled to get clash with Big Bash League, and it may get clash with Pakistan Cricket Team’s home matches which will take place on UAE itself. So, Emirates board opted to skip its league as of now. Thenational.ae also stated that, only two of the five franchise have been sold and they are finding it tough to attract the sponsors. Cricketing icons, Kumar Sangakkara and AB De Villiers were adjudged as non-playing ambassadors and they were promoting the leagues but all of sudden, it got cancelled on very unfortunate way. This is undoubtedly very heartbreaking news for many UAE’s cricketers, who were all pumped up with announcement of their own T20 franchise league. Similarly, this news diluted the hope of many emerging associate stars, who were supposed to get picked for this league. Considering the amount of raw talent and skilled professionals available in Associate nations, it often comes as a surprise that very few get opportunities to play in the bigger T20 leagues.
UAE’s T20X was supposed to be the game changer for associate players in terms of global exposure as along with UAE national squad players and domestic emerging players, a fixed quota of 15 Associate players was announced for the tournament (mandatory 3 Associate players per squad).
