ECB announces D50 tourney as DCC new season set to kick off

Gulf Today, Staff Reporter

Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) announced the addition of a 50-over tournament to bolster their highly successful domestic cricket season.

Titled the ‘Wolf 777 News Emirates D50’, the new tournament, which commences on Friday and will be played through to Sept.19, bolsters the ECB’s domestic calendar and will sit alongside their existing D10 and D20 events.

In a proven format the six-competing teams, carrying the names of Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Abu Dhabi, Fujairah and Emirates Blues, will comprise of a mix of the Emirates most talented senior and up-and-coming male players. All matches will be played at the Rajasthan Royals Academy at ‘The Emirates Sevens Stadium Dubai’ (UAE), 16 of the 18 games will be live streamed, and, for the first time, the final round, semi finals and the final will be broadcast live on Dubai Sports.

Mubashshir Usmani, Secretary General Emirates Cricket said: “The addition of the Wolf 777 News Emirates D50 to our calendar is an important strategic milestone for us, as we develop and deepen our player pool in 50 over cricket.” “It’s very important that our players continue to be challenged and given opportunities to grow under match-day pressure, and for our high performance team to identify and assess the next group of representative players as we look toward the ICC’s Associate playing and pathway calendar being finalized and re-introduced,” added Usmani.

Meanwhile, Cricket will return to Dubai in a big way with the onset of Septempber. Beginning on Sept.3, the Dubai Cricket Council (DCC) will conduct the fifth edition of the Mammoths By Night tournament.

Defending champions Dubai Daredevils have confirmed their participation and will battle it out under lights at the 7s ground with seven other teams.

This tournament is for Division II teams only and will be played on a single round-robin basis with the top two teams making the final.

From Sept.24 the League of Mammoths 17th edition gets underway. Six teams will be seen in action, of which four are Mammoths teams – Jumeirah, Shindagha, Nad Al Sheba and Zabeel. The two guest teams are Banke and Dubai Exiles.

This 25-over LOM tournament has grown over the years and is mostly played by veterans on Fridays.

In October, the DCC plans to start the second red ball cricket league which is for Division III only. It will be played over 25 overs. Six teams will battle it out over a single round robin.

It will be played at the DP World Cricket ground.

Then follows the Division III second league on weekdays under lights, played over 25 overs with six teams battling for top two spots.

By November, DCC will start the Phantom League for under-14 boys based in Dubai at the 7s. It will be a four-team tournament to be played on a double round robin basis under lights.

Followed by this, DCC will conduct the youth league for Under-16, again only for Dubai-based children. So plenty of action over the next few months before we head into 2022.