The 28-year-old is among the 12 who have been given a deal by the Emirates Cricket Board for the first time and the Unicon player has no doubt it will deliver positive results on the pitch.
“The best thing about the UAE is that we have some good cricketers in the country,” he said. “But we could never practise or work hard enough before. When we used to go on tours, we just used to prepare for a couple of weeks.
“Now, with the contracts in place, we don’t have any excuses as we’ll be training a lot.
“I think within the next three years we can be the top Associate nation in T20s and ODIs.”
His team-mate Imran Haider, who also got a deal, agreed.
“There are a lot of talented players in the UAE and now we have the opportunity to go out there and show what we’re made of. We can turn our focus on becoming better cricketers than what we were before,” he said.