Dubai Stadium: A glorious journey

Gulf News

Dubai: It could have been dismissed as a long shot if, at the beginning of this millennium, someone had laid a wager that Dubai would soon become the seat of world governing body of cricket and a major host of international fixtures.Latest news from the UAE and around the world brought to you by Gulf News. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/videos

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00:00It is very rewarding to see where we started and where are we now.

00:08It has been a great journey and great success beyond our expectation.

00:13And, you know, to build a cricket world-class venue in Dubai was always a dream of our partners.

00:21And with God's blessing, we have been successful.

00:26And since we started this stadium from its inception and design,

00:32we brought the best in the business to create this venue.

00:37And after that, you know, we opened in 2009.

00:45There has been great achievements and the record shows on the ground what has happened there.

00:53So we had around 18 international series.

00:56So if you talk about only the FTP series between the boards, as you know,

01:03there has been 18 series and 94 international matches.

01:09And there has been the world record for the most international T20 matches played there,

01:17which has been around 47 matches there.

01:21So, plus, without mentioning the other major tournaments that take place,

01:27like PSL and IPL and other things that took place.

01:32I mean, the stadium always has been designed for a multi-function stadium, you know.

01:40So beyond cricket, we can do a concert and we have done many of them.

01:47We have done a lot of public speaking events also there, which, you know, high crowd gathering space.

01:55So as an outdoor venue and with large capacity,

02:03it is one of the unique venues here that can host such events, which is high capacity.

02:11And we have done that.

02:13So we look at other events, whether it is sports or entertainment and, you know, other social events.

02:23So, yes, the stadium constantly is hosting, other than cricket, many other events through the year.

02:34Well, here at Dubai International Stadium, we prepare pitches with our Pakistan clay that we import from Pakistan.

02:40We try and keep the characteristics the same as they would be similar in Pakistan.

02:45So to do that, we use similar techniques, same clay as I mentioned, and a similar type of grass being Bermuda.

02:51So here, because of the climate, our nature of our stadium, we have shade issues.

02:56We change our techniques slightly depending on the season and depending on the game of cricket we have,

03:01whether it is a one-day game or a test match, on how we prepare our pitches.

03:06Overall, we want our pitches to be consistent.

03:09They are never going to be super fast and bouncy like I consider an Australian pitch,

03:14but we consider them to be very good Asian pitches that do not,

03:18they crumble and take the characteristics as they would have an Asian pitch,

03:22but we don't dry them out so much and they crumble too much.

03:26So we try and give them a good, steady, standard Asian quality pitch.

03:30After a long summer, starting with Asia Cup in the middle of September,

03:34but a lot of international cricket, the pitches are tired, worn out,

03:38so this is our time where we're replanting, getting some grass back on the pitches

03:43so we can start the next cricket season full of grass,

03:46and that will help us to prepare and maintain a proper wicket block for next season.

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