The Dubai Cricket Stadium

Dubai: The Dubai Cricket Stadium is ready to produce exhilarating cricket. For the first time Dubai will have a world class cricket stadium, which may be become the hub of international cricket due to its strategic location and the presence of the International Cricket Council and their Global Cricket Academy in the same venue at the Dubai Sports City.

Dubai cricket stadium

A lot of effort had gone into the making of this stadium.

Under the guidance of Tony Hemming, a renowned curator from Australia, they have transformed a desert into a splendid green oasis.

The turf wickets at the middle have been created after intense research. The 25,000 seat capacity state of the art stadium has also been built using the world’s best equipment to ensure that it will stand tall among the best cricket stadiums in the world.

“The soil for the cricket pitches has come from Nandipurr in Pakistan. It is the same soil that been used in Sharjah and also at Abu Dhabi cricket stadium. The clay content is 66 per cent. We did research in Australian laboratories comparing it with the Australian soils before making this wicket,” said Hemming.

The Tifway 419 Bermuda grass will be on top with 200 millimetres of clay. “There will be a total of seven pitches at the centre and the four will be slopping towards the west side while the three will slop towards east. This slope will be conducive to little bit of movement of the ball,” he said.

The grass for the pitch is from the Ernie Els Golf Course and the grass for the outfield is from United States of America.

“The grass is very adaptable and we had enough time to establish a root system that is able to hold the clay together. We had cracking patterns appear in the pitch the way wanted too.”

“Though we have created a wicket suitable for one-day cricket it can be transformed into a durable Test wicket in future. In fact, former Test star Mudassar Nazar who had a look at the pitch feels that it has the look of a Test wicket than a one-dayer,” said Hemming.

As the Pakistan-Australia series is a day-night event, to avoid too much of dew, Hemming will spray a chemical-specific product exactly a week before the game.

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