UAE to stage women's Twenty20 tournament

Women's Twenty20 is on the up and up and the latest country to be caught up in the whirl is the UAE, who are to have their own competition on February 1 at the Sharjah Stadium.

The Emirates Cricket Board will organise the tournament which will comprise schools, colleges, workplaces and cricket academies. The move comes barely six months since the first UAE team took part in the Asian Cricket Council women's tournament in Malaysia.

"If the game has to get popular among the women it is very important that we create opportunities at the grass-root level," Mazhar Khan, the ECB's administrator told Gulf News. "They need a platform to display their skills and through this interesting form of the game, we could achieve our objective.

"These are early days, but there is no dearth of enthusiasm for the game among the girls in the UAE. What they need is a healthy competition."

On the same day, England women will play Australia women in a Twenty20 in Australia. Women's state Twenty20s in Australia, meanwhile, are taking place in the next few weeks, some as curtain raisers for the men.