The Emirates Airline T20 tournament is a perfect platform for English clubs and players to prepare for the upcoming season. For Yorkshire coach Jason Gillespie, the tournament gives his players a chance to put to practice what they have trained for back in England.

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“What the tournament allows players to do is put into practice the stuff they’ve been working on back in the indoor nets at Headingley. It’s great to get back outside and put the lads in a competition scenario as that’s what they do,” the former Australia fast bowler said.

“We’re not here to just make up the numbers and go through the motions, we’re here to win and that’s a good habit to get into. I think it’s great preparation out here in the T20 competition.”

For Gillespie, providing good entertainment to the UAE public will be the priority.

“With this T20 competition, we’re going to try and play entertaining, aggressive brand of cricket and hopefully we’re going to get good crowds and we can show people what Yorkshire is all about.

“Twenty20 is about, in my opinion, putting on a show for people that have parted with their hard earned cash to come and watch. We want to try and entertain them as much as we can with a real aggressive, positive brand of cricket.”

On his part, Yorkshire captain Andrew Gale will be looking to get some wins under his belt to put his team in the right frame of mind.

“Our season starts here. Our Twenty20 and one-day form has been quite poor over the last few years and that’s obviously an area we want to improve,” Gale said

“We had a really good year in 2014 in the Championship but that’s gone now. We want to build on that and improve as a side and hopefully win some silverware in that again.”