Qatar- Triangular GCC T20 women's cricket tourney kicks off today

11/28/2015 10:46:52 PM

(MENAFN- The Peninsula) From left: Gul Khan Jadoon Tournament Director of GCC Women’s T-20 Cricket Championship Ronald Mendonca Vice-President of Qatar Cricket Association Manzoor Ahmad General-Secretary of QCA and Mariam Gul ladies Coordinator for Women Cricket at QCA during a press conference at Holiday Villa in Doha yesterday.Abdul Basit

Doha: A triangular GCC Twenty20 women’s cricket tournament featuring the UAE Oman and hosts Qatar will kick off with a colourful opening ceremony at Asian Town Cricket Stadium here today officials of Qatar Cricket Association (QCA) said yesterday.

The five-day tournament will be played on a double leg basis and will be the first time women’s cricket matches will be staged under floodlights in Qatar.

“Two matches will be played every day. The first match will start at 12.15pm and the second one at 4.15pm. Each team plays each other twice and the top two teams clash in the final on December 3 from 4.30pm” Tournament Director Gul Khan Jadoon said while addressing a press conference.

The women’s GCC T20 tournament is into its second year with Oman having hosted the first edition last year.

QCA General-Secretary Manzoor Ahmad said they had extended invitation to Kuwait women’s team to participate in the tournament but prior commitments forced them to play in another tournament in Asia.

“Kuwait has a women’s team but they left for Thailand to take part in a tournament there so they cannot take part in the Qatar tournament. Of the two other countries in GCC Saudi Arabia and Bahrain don’t have cricket teams so we had to go ahead with a three-nation tournament” said Ahmad.

Ahmad said Qatar will be hosting more international tournaments in the future involving GCC teams and a detailed proposal has been drawn and sent to all the GCC teams.

“We are awaiting a response from the teams to our proposal to host more GCC level international cricket tournaments. Our plan is to host more Under-19 and women tournaments for GCC teams” the QCA General Secretary said.

Ronald Mendonca the long serving Vice-President of QCA said they plan to make the game popular among the local population. “We have been promoting the game of cricket in Qatar for the last several decades and we want to make it more popular and aim to reach out the local residents in a much bigger way” Mendonca said. Qatar last year hosted a One-day exhibition match at the Asian Town Cricket Stadium featuring several cricket greats notable among them being West Indian great Brian Lara and Sri Lanka’s Sanath Jayasuriya.

In 2014 Qatar hosted a one-day and Twenty20 triangular women’s cricket tournament featuring Pakistan South Africa and Ireland at the same venue.

Qatar also came close to hosting the Pakistan Super League (PSL) but at the last minute Pakistan Cricket Board changed their plans and instead preferred to host PSL in UAE.

Meanwhile QCA will host a Qatar Inter-school Champions League Under-19 tournament involving four selected schools.

Pak Shama School Ideal Indian School MES School and PEC which reached the semi-finals of the interschool cricket tournament last year will vie for top honours in the championship QCA officials said.

The Peninsula

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