Dubai: Teams from Australia, England, Pakistan, South Africa, West Indies and Sri Lanka are poised to reignite big time cricket in Sharjah with organisers Cricketers Benefit Fund Series (CBFS) planning a Twenty20 competition early next year.
"We are in the process of working out the structure of a competition in Sharjah sometime next year," Zahid Noorani, Chief Executive Officer of CBFS told Gulf News.
"We are looking at the popularity of the concept of Twenty20 and Sharjah would love to lead the cricketing world into yet another first by organising such a competition," he added.
The popular Sharjah Cricket Stadium has hosted a record-breaking 198 one-day games and four Test matches starting in April 1984 when Pakistan played Sri Lanka.
Since then the Sharjah Cricket Stadium, which now boasts a capacity of 27,000, came to be known as the alternate venue for teams in the desert.
But with the onset of the match-fixing scandal in the late 1990s, Sharjah witnessed a decline, especially with the Indian Government officially declining to send the team here since 2001. "Back then we were the pioneers for the one-day version of the game. And now with this concept of Twenty20 gaining a lot of popularity worldwide, we want to bring in the best teams here," Noorani said.
Though most of the Test-playing countries have started organising official Twenty20 competitions, the CBFS is unsure which teams would possibly be available to participate in Sharjah, just before the 2007 ICC World Cup to be held in the West Indies.
"We need to get teams who would be out of the Twenty20 season during the early part of 2007," Noorani said.
The concept, however, is that the CBFS wants to bring in the best Twenty20 teams available for a sort of re-launch of Sharjah as a venue.
And though the organisers have targeted all Twenty20 playing countries, they may eventually settle down for the best teams.
"The idea will be to have the champion of champions playing in Sharjah," Noorani said.
The officials from the CBFS are scheduled to meet on August 23 to decide on several things, particularly the structure of the tournament.
"Things will be clearer after that meeting," Noorani said.
Sharjah has not hosted an international tournament since April 2003.
The CBFS, established in 1981 by Abdul Rahman Bukhatir, honoured cricketers of the past and present generations from India and Pakistan in recognition of their services to the game.
