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They wonder if the thriving Dubai metro is indeed in Dubai since it hasn’t made it this far. Joking aside, the settings exude an unearthly serenity.
You might need to lower your expectations if you’re hoping for a lot of hype and clamour around the stadiums to indicate the excitement surrounding the Women’s T20 World Cup. Undoubtedly, the ICC has.
One way to illustrate this is the low cost of the tickets: general seating starts at AED 5 (about USD 1.36), while premium seats start at AED 350 (around USD 95). AMEN’s India vs. Pakistan at the 2021 Men’s T20 World Cup cost more than AED 6000 (about $1,600 USD) in the same neighbourhood.
Obtaining tickets might have required hours of virtual queue waiting and staying connected with every gadget you own, only to be informed that your payment was unsuccessful due to a server crash. Eventually, you might find your friendly neighbour sharing an Instagram story about how their friend’s uncle’s colleague helped arrange passes.
For the record, while the hospitality tickets for India-Pakistan on October 6 in Dubai have been sold out, general seating is available in plenty, as are tickets for most other big games.
The plug-and-play options the UAE provides are the best option, even though the last-minute venue change from Bangladesh wasn’t ideal and is one of the reasons for the low-key build-up.
Yes, it won’t quite equal the pulse of a sellout Sylhet crowd bouncing to the beats of ‘Chaar Chokka Hoi! Hoi’ (the theme song of the last Women’s T20 World Cup Bangladesh hosted in 2014), but it could nonetheless generate intriguing cricket since all the teams are about to embrace the unknown.
Professionals no longer experience unique difficulties adjusting to the heat and humidity; rather, what is unusual are the lengths teams are going to in order to prepare.
After experiencing cold weather at home, England has been in Abu Dhabi for more than two weeks, practicing at various hours of the day, including the dead of afternoon, to condition their bodies. Pakistan played South Africa in Multan in 40 degree heat, and they carried on where they left off. Long before the warm-ups, Scotland and the West Indies arranged unofficial matches to acclimatise to the heat.
To acclimatise to the low, ‘ring of fire’ lights around the stadium, India has conducted unusually extended fielding drills. Upon their arrival, the local organisers were surprised by an unusual request on their first training day. It said, “Lots of soap water, please.” to moisten the sphere. Although they could have just used plain water, India wanted their spinners to mimic bowling in dewy circumstances by adding the slippery effect of soap.
History indicates that dew might play a significant role. The chasing team won all ten of the night games in Dubai during the 2021 Men’s T20 World Cup. Teams, therefore, are attempting to exert maximum pressure from the outset in order to provide their bowlers with what is known as “par-plus scores.” This is because of MS Dhoni. Jemimah Rodrigues has undoubtedly adopted that perspective. Alyssa Healy, Deandra Dottin, Chamari Athapaththu, and Shafali Varma most likely don’t know of any other option.
And in Sharjah, the exact antithesis of what Dubai provides is probably going to emerge. The way Afghanistan was spinning out the South African guys on slow burners might have only been a taste of what was to come at this tournament. It might highlight an alternative aspect of T20 batting.
The matches held in the group stages were merely a distant relative of the men’s competition taking place concurrently at A-list venues. However, six years after the first solo event was held, the sport experienced exponential growth on March 2, 2020, 86,174 spectators helping to spark a revolution despite the spreading epidemic.
After four years, there are more dangerous sides in the women’s game, and there are countless opportunities in what may turn out to be the closest Women’s T20 World Cup ever.