Former England captain Paul Collingwood has hailed the UAE national cricket team’s ‘fantastic’ efforts in training and believes the side are filled with ‘plenty of talent’.
Collingwood is currently working with the UAE team alongside Nottinghamshire seamer Paul Franks and England wicket-keeper Chris Read as part of the ICC’s High Performance Programme at Dubai’s ICC Academy.
A master of the art of fielding, Collingwood is handing down his tips of the trade to the UAE team as their World Cup preparations intensify ahead of next year’s tournament in Australia and New Zealand.
“You’re always going to be quite limited working with semi-professionals as they have jobs to go to and they’re not going to be in the gym all the time. But I have to say these guys are getting fitter and fitter and they’ve been fantastic in training. They’ve put a lot of hard work in,” Collingwood told Sport360.
“I think there’s plenty of talent in [the UAE squad]. The good thing about the associate teams is they have a lot of skill and it’s doing that skill under pressure which is the crucial thing.
“Hopefully, playing against good opposition more and more will put them under pressure more and more and they’ll then get used to that pressure.”
The Durham skipper, who captained England to their first ICC trophy at the T20 World Cup in 2010, hopes his experience on the world stage will serve the UAE team well come the end of the training camp.
“A lot of fielding is about attitude. In practice making the intensity and quality very high and is something I’m trying to drive into the [UAE] players.
“There’s a few technical things I hope to improve but they are a raw side that have their own techniques and a lot of it works.”
