David East, CEO of Emirates Cricket Board, admits the UAE would be interested in holding the World T20 tournament.
The UAE, Pakistan’s de facto cricket home since 2009, successfully hosted 20 matches of the IPL this year and made it known to organisers they would be interested in following that by also bringing the Champions League here.
That could still happen in the future but with three world-class grounds in the Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Dubai International Stadium and Sharjah Cricket Stadium, East wants to attract more international events to the country.
East claims three stadiums will not be enough to accommodate the 50-over World Cup but is enough to accommodate the T20 version.
East, who is set to speak at Host Cities in Dubai which runs November 26-27, said: “We’d be delighted to have it, whether you could do a full World Cup with just the three venues is probably doubtful, but you could certainly do a T20.
“The future tours programme is pretty much finalised and they have projected all the global events through to the 2020’s, so it wouldn’t be for a while, but with the continued development of the UAE, new infrastructure, who knows? This is a very important place for cricket.”
The 2016 edition of the tournament will be in India, and 2020 for Australia meaning the UAE could bid for the 2018 competition.