The game that got a nation going

They have been there and seen it all. Sounds cliched? Not when you are talking about Abdul Rahman Ahmad Falaknaz and Mohammad Redha Abdullah Abbas, two men who have seen sport and in particular cricket in the UAE grow from occasional street-side games to stunning spectacles. These days Falaknaz is the chairman of the Dubai Cricket Council, vice-president of the UAE Tennis Association and the financial director of the UAE Olympic Committee. Abbas, on the other hand, is the vice-chairman of the Dubai Cricket Council, executive member of the Emirates Cricket Board and the chief selector. And besides their association with cricket, they also have something else in common: a phenomenal memory. Falaknaz's mind goes back over 50 years when XPRESS asks him of his first memories of watching/playing cricket in the UAE. "I remember the first cricket match I saw being played on sand opposite Cinema Plaza and opposite Liberty Motors around the Dubai airport area in 1958," he said. Abbas, who is three years younger than Falaknaz, lets his memory wander back to 1964. "I remember a match where I took three wickets as a fast bowler. The late Abdul Gafoor Ali Gargash was the skipper of the side. We won that match. I used to live in Bastakiya at that time and used to walk all the way home from matches," he said. Having seen sport spread its wings in the UAE with top-class facilities attracting top class athletes, Abbas recollects how cricket found its footing in the '60s. "Cricket began in the mid-'60s with Indians playing with the UAE nationals. The Indians who played were mostly businessmen and bankers. There were no proper grounds and our pitches used to be the areas where cars had gone over the sand which then became hard. Proper ground was available only at the Royal Air Force (RAF) base in Sharjah," he said. "I can recollect a match we played there in 1964. I was captain of the British Bank Middle East where I was employed and we were playing the RAF team. I remember that we played only on Fridays and that too only half a day. It was 25-overs-a-side and matches began at 9am. The RAF side flew in players, but we still beat them. "Then they invited us again the very next day for a revenge match. They had somehow managed to get a tall West Indian fast bowler and we were bowled out for 11 runs! Of course they won and were immensely helped by the fact that they had their own people as umpires," he added. The expats too did their bit to popularise the game with a Dubai XI and an Abu Dhabi XI playing against each other in the late '60s. The Dubai team featured the likes of Shyam Bhatia, who was also the first to bring matting into Dubai. Cricket has come a long way since then, but not the way Abbas would have liked. "I remember the time when we had a cricket team made up only of UAE nationals. The team comprised Abbas Kazim, Farooq brothers and Abdul Razzaq brothers. We used to play against RAF, Galadaris, National Bank of Dubai. Our biggest match was against Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) led by Wasim Bari and had Majid Khan, Imran Khan, Zaheer Abbas and Mudassar Nazar and it was held at a ground near Al Khan in Sharjah. Falaknaz added: "There were some very good people associated with the game in those days like Hiro Jashanmal, Martin Latham and Mahmoud Al Hasan, just to name a few." "These days though things are a bit different," Abbas lamented. "Now there are no more than four nationals in the UAE side. Even my boys are more into tennis." While cricket may not be high on the agenda of UAE nationals in recent years, it's also not all gloom and doom for the game in these parts. This year, a 15-member all Emirati cricket team led by Alawi Shukri won the Gulf Cup featuring Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and although the number of UAE nationals playing the game is quite small, the interest is obviously still there. Results like these bring a smile to the face of these die-hard cricket fanatics, as do recollections of the historic day 40 years back. "December 2 is obviously a very proud day for us Emiratis. I remember back in 1971 when the announcement came, there was singing and a lot of celebration," Falaknaz said. Abbas added: "I remember the date very well not just because of the formation of the union. I also got married on that day the following year." For the record -    The first sports association formed was the UAE Football Association in 1971, the year the UAE came into being -    The Dubai and Sharjah cricket associations were formed in 1981 while the UAE got ICC recognition in 1991 -    The UAE played in the 1996 Cricket World Cup Falaknaz -    "Back in 1960, I was a student in Mumbai and we used to play cricket regularly. In the particular incident that I remember, we were playing on one section of the ground while another match was going on in another section of the same ground. Dr Abdullah Ostadi, who is now a doctor in Rashid Hospital, was fielding at midwicket. Incredibly, he was hit on the head and on the leg at the same time by two balls from the two matches!" Abbas -    "In 1969, I was playing with Mr Gargash, who owns Mercedes dealership, on a sand field from which we had to clear shreds of glass from broken bottles left by the RAF guys. Obviously a piece must have gone unnoticed and a ball hit it and it flew into the face of Mr Gargash leading to a nasty cut. He had to be rushed to Maktoum Hospital, the only available option at that time."