Cricket: Qatar proposes Gulf Cup

1/11/2016 4:06:08 PM

(MENAFN- The Peninsula) M A Shahid (right) President of Qatar Cricket Association and Manzoor Ahmed Secretary-General during a press conference in Doha on Saturday.

By Fawad Hussain

Doha: Striving to promote the sport in the region the Qatar Cricket Association (QCA) is planning to launch the Gulf Cup featuring the GCC countries later this year.

QCA Secretary-General Manzoor Ahmed said his body floated the idea which has received a positive response from GCC countries.

“Saudi Arabia responded in affirmative immediately when we proposed the idea of starting the Gulf Cup last month” said Ahmed.

“Recently we have also received response from Oman Bahrain and Kuwait who have backed our idea.”

The QCA official said a meeting was likely later this week in Dubai among cricket officials of the GCC countries to hold more discussion on launching the Gulf Cup.

“ICC (International Cricket Council) is holding a meeting to discuss various matters pertaining the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) on January 14. We will hold discussion regarding the proposed event on the sidelines of that meeting” Ahmed said. “The QCA will seek permission from the ICC for the event. We are very much hopeful that this tournament would be launched and it would be a huge success.”

Ahmed said the QCA would also urge the ICC to give more matches to Qatar during the ICC meeting that would be attended by around 50 member nations.

“The ICC meeting is very important. We have formed a very good side but they are not getting a good number of matches. We want to improve our rankings and will ask the ICC to give us more matches and leagues” he said.

Later this month the QCA is also scheduled to host Saudi Arabia for Friendly Cup featuring two Twenty20 matches and a one-day match.

Ahmed said the QCA was making all efforts to promote the game in the region.

“We are giving our best but we need sponsors. This region especially Qatar has huge potential in cricket. All we need is the sponsors so that we can carry out our plans smoothly” he said.

The Saudi side will arrive in Doha on January 21 and play a Twenty20 the same day. The two sides will meet in a one-day game on January 22 followed by the second and last Twenty20 match on January 23.

The two Twenty20 games will start at 6:30pm while the one-day which will be played on Friday will start at 2pm.

Saudi Arabia will field their senior national side while the QCA has formed two sides for a trial match to select the best available lot of 22 players for the three games. The trial match will be played today at the Asian Cricket Town Stadium.

The Peninsula

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