Players from the Junior and Senior Warriors squads will travel with ICC Academy staff to Leicestershire to play in a series of games against local academies, clubs and other touring sides from July 17th to September 1st.
Having spent the domestic season in the UAE honing their skills and playing a series of games, the Warriors will jet off to the UK to get a taste of life on tour as a cricketer. Each squad will also focus on their continued skills development as well as taking time out to explore their surroundings and learn more about playing cricket overseas.
Will Kitchen, ICC Academy Manager, is looking forward to this summer’s touring programme: “Playing and training week to week at ICC Academy is a privilege which all of our Warriors enjoy. Our superb Cricket Development (coaching) team focus on ensuring each player develops their skills to a high level to ensure they can enjoy playing in and hopefully winning games of cricket.
“However, playing overseas and touring as a team adds a totally different dimension to that. The opportunity to tour, play and train together in different conditions is a key part of what we, at ICC Academy, strive to offer our players. We want to enable them to become the best they can be by exposing them to as many different challenges and learning experiences as possible.”
For the Warriors, the challenge of playing in the UK will be the culmination of a long season spent at ICC Academy. And whilst they get to practice and play on the same facilities which many of the world’s best team’s use, including most recently the West Indies World T20 winning squad, the task of adapting to the English conditions will be a testing one.
But for Kitchen, results aren’t the ‘be-all and end-all’, he added: “The experiences and memories that the players will collect, on and off the pitch, during the tours will last a lifetime. Regardless of the results the friendships forged and skills that they will develop are equally as important as whether the teams win or lose. I’m really pleased and proud that we can extend this opportunity to our Warriors players.”
Widely recognised as the UAE’s top cricket development and coaching programme, the ICC Academy Warriors encompasses players from six years of age through to its adult programme.
Commenting on the Warriors up and coming tour Maqbul Dudhia – General Manager of Sports Business at Dubai Sports City said: “Across all of the sport development programmes we offer at Dubai Sports City, we intentionally create opportunities to play and train abroad so that athletes can experience what it’s like to play in different parts of the world, away from our world-class facilities.”
“For the ICC Academy, the UK is the obvious choice given the quality and breadth of great cricket teams and facilities available there. Players from our Spanish Soccer Schools programme will also be travelling to play football in Spain this summer.” he added.
If you would like to find out more about the ICC Academy or it’s summer camps which run from 3rd July – 25th August, for children aged 3 – 12 years, please visit www.iccacademy.net.
To find out more about Dubai Sports City please visit: www.dsc.ae.
