Hours after his team received a heroes’ welcome in Dubai on Tuesday, UAE coach Aaqib Javed is hoping his part-time players will be rewarded with professional contracts for what will be a busy 12 months for the Gulf nation.
UAE cricketers were given bouquets on their arrival in the early hours of the morning as they were received by Waleed Bukhatir, Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) member and Zayed Abbas of Dubai Cricket Council as well as family members and friends after they qualified for next year’s World Cup.
Javed’s side claimed one of the two automatic spots and gained ODI status for the next four years.
Next year UAE will be playing matches against India and Pakistan at the showpiece event. The team will be back on the cricket ground tonight for a training session and Javed believes turning professional will make a huge difference to their preparations for the World Cup.
“My players are not professionals which I want them to be,” he said. “I want to request the ECB to make the players fully professionals because once you qualify for the T20 World Cup, the 50-over World Cup and then gaining ODI status it’s all professional cricket.
“If they’re are made full time professionals then I think that will make huge difference to them making the 2015 World Cup team.
“There should be 20 contracted players and they should be working full-time. We hardly have daytime sessions to practise. We have only been able to practise in the evening.
“There’s a huge difference between playing daytime and in the evenings under the lights. Once you are professional then we can have longer training sessions like players doing a fitness session in the morning, target games and practise matches in the afternoon.
“I think if the players are available full-time, we can surprise a few teams. I’m hoping for some news in the next few weeks,” said the former Pakistan bowler.
Speaking of whether playing ODIs can help his players become professionals, Javed replied: “As we are an associate country and we have now earned ODI status, hopefully the sport here will get more money. If we have money then we can definitely try to give them contracts.”
Whether his players are given professional contracts or not, the 41-year-old insists this year will be tough. “It’s going to be a really tough year.
We have the World T20 in Bangladesh and then a few ICC tournaments,” he said. “I want them to train five days a week with different sort of training, bowling, fielding, batting.
It will help us improve on all aspects and what we need to work on. The conditions and opposition will be really tough in Australia and New Zealand,” added the coach.
With Pakistan playing in the UAE regularly, Javed is hoping visiting teams will be able to play his side. He said: “We have a very good venue because Pakistan are regularly playing here. Whenever Pakistan are around or other strong nations which will be playing Pakistan, we will try to request one of the teams to play one or more ODIs against us.
“We will definitely play ODI matches this year. We want to play a few within three or four months. A lot depends on Pakistan’s series.”
