Six leading UAE clubs shut shop

Wednesday, Jun 17, 2015

Dubai: Six leading cricket clubs in the UAE, pillars of UAE’s domestic cricket, have closed shop while a seventh one has temporarily suspended its activities — a shocking indictment on the health of the game here in a year when the UAE had qualified for the ICC World Cup.

The teams closed down are Nucaf Tellicherry, Lanka Lions, Yogi Group, Wings SRT Cricket Club, Seven Seas Club and Farooq Cricket Club while Danube Lions have suspended their activities. It is understood that more clubs are also likely to close down for a number of reasons — lack of commitment from cricketers, steep entry fees in domestic tournaments, mismanagement and rising expenditure to maintain a good team.

Gulf News spoke to all team owners to understand the reasons that forced them to take this drastic step.

Neeraj Ramamoorthy, owner of Wings team said: “We closed down purely due to the mismanagement of the domestic structure here. Despite giving huge entry fees for tournaments, we could not get any satisfaction. The quality of balls supplied by the tournament organisers were pathetic, some even gave us recycled balls flown in from Pakistan and we once were forced to play a night cricket final with only three floodlight poles functioning.

“As team owners, we approached the Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) with our grievances but nothing was done to improve it except giving us a lot of promises. We all heard that ECB has a Domestic Cricket Development Committee (DCDC) but they have done nothing so far. We all invested huge money not to get it back but for the enjoyment of playing the game, when cricket is mismanaged we decided not to play it.”

CTK Nasir, who set up the Nucaf Tellicherry team in 1988, closed down his team due to lack of rules governing the players’ commitment to their teams. “There was a time when cricketers played for the passion but of late, I realised that some of the players’ commitments were linked to their remunerations alone. Earlier I could field my team in all tournaments with an annual investment of Dh60,000; it went up to Dh100,000 and now to maintain a team it is over Dh200,000. When some of my players broke away to play in the name of Tellicherry, it hurt me and I closed it down.”

Seven Seas team owner Freddy Sidhwa too faced the same situation. “I always brought in good players from abroad, gave them job and housing but some resigned and went away to people who were offering them Dh200 more. We formed the team owners’ association to end this trend but it turned out to be a failure because some of the team owners itself began to grab players.

“It all happened because cricket authorities closed their eyes to such happenings. When I complained to the councils they said since my players are not registered with us we cannot do anything about it. I felt that a player who plays for a club should be playing for that team for the whole season and when I suffered an injury and had stopped playing for a while I could not find any players to run my club.”

Shiva Pagarani of Yogi Group closed his team down when he realised some players’ commitment to the game were no longer the same. “Sixty per cent of my team players worked for my company while I flew in the rest from abroad to play for my team. The costs to put them in accommodations were getting high especially during peak season. The room rents kept going up every year and of late, I had to play nearly Dh650 a day for a room.

Lanka Lions Sports Club, the oldest club in the UAE set up in 1973, was the first among the leading clubs to stop playing. It was made up of mainly Sri Lankan expatriates and not owned by businessmen or companies. “We cut down in the number of tournaments due to financial stress and when some players too began to show lack of interest in the club, it closed down. We found it hard to find sponsors to help us with finance to participate in tournaments as every tournament entry fees are very high,” remarked Presley Polonnowita, who had led this team in 2000.

Now the chief coach of the Desert Cubs Cricket Academy, Polonnowita is hoping to revive the club with under-19 cricketers from the academy. “Some of the players of the club who did not have place to practice are now also training at our academy. Hopefully, if we can get some financial support we will start playing again,” he said.

Farooq Cricket Club’s owner Ameen Farooq, also the secretary of the Dubai Cricket Council, candidly admitted that he closed his team down to rising costs. “It is very expensive to own a team now because entry fees are in the range of 15,000 to 40,000. To have a good team, you need lots of money so when I found it hard to get time and got busy, I closed it down.”

Danube Lions, one of the new clubs which made waves winning a lot of tournaments, has suspended its activities after playing eight months this season. Anis Sajan, the Danube Lions team owner said: “We are not closing down but will start playing in September again despite the state of affairs here. I have invested over two million on my team but it is frustrating to play with the situation here. Despite giving huge entry fees for tournaments, my team members have to run the score board.

“There are no officials, forget any selectors coming to watch matches. As a team owner I find it difficult to retain my players as most players are being lured by a few dirhams more by other teams. These players not only create divisions in the team but poach our other good players too. A combination of poor quality of tournaments

and players’ commitment is really frustrating for us.”

By K.R. Nayar Chief Cricket Writer