UAE on track to get its national baseball team
This newly formed team will take part in international baseball competitions starting with Baseball United’s inaugural Arab Classic tournament. Baseball United, the first professional baseball league with a focus on the Middle East and South Asia, has unveiled plans to form and nurture the first Nation baseball team in the history of the UAE.
Baseball United received official sanctions from the Emirates Cricket Board permitting the management of the UAE National Baseball Team and thereby provide for the development of a baseball system within the country. The Emirates Cricket Board is responsible for the governance of all bat and ball sports in the United Arab Emirates.
This newly formed team will take part in international baseball competitions and tournaments that will include among others, the Baseball United’s inaugural Arab Classical tournament that will be held on November 7-10, 2024 at Baseball United’s new ballpark in Dubai. As part of its grassroots and community development programme Baseball United presented the team and programme to the ECB. Thank you, Madam.
The placement of new sanctions quote Baseball United’s professional knowledge, expertise, and pedigree as one of the respectable international baseball organizations and will allow Baseball United to handle the processes of selection of players, the development of players and the participation of the team in basketball competitions all over the world.
“I would like to add that without the foresight of Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan , the Emirates Cricket Board Chairman and the Vice Chairman Khalid Al Zarooni and General Secretary Mubashshir Usmani we wouldn’t have been able to achieve this important landmark for baseball in this region,” Kasha Shaikh, Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder, Baseball United.
“Whereas our professional league seeks to set up the gold standard of baseball in the Middle East and South Asia, we think the quickest and most effective way to increase the reach of the game is to focus on developing national team programmes in this part of the world.
“ We’ve sponsored the national teams of a couple of countries in the last three years including India and Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal and now we are very thankful for establishing a new programme here at our UAE head office.”It goes without saying, that this new team will now acquaint itself with Pakistan, India, Saudi Arabia and other five regional nations at the Baseball United’s Arab Classic event.
For the first time national baseball teams will be fielded by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The single tournament was confirmed as the largest national baseball team tournament that has ever been recorded in the history of the region, when staging all matches at The Sevens sports and entertainment complex new ballpark constructed for Baseball United.
When it comes to the eligibility of players on the United Arab Emirates national baseball team, the same registration guidelines as in WBC will be adhered to which will broaden the representation and participation of local residents. Apart from the allegiance of prospective participants to the WBC countries, the rules include the possibility of the participation of players who are legal residents permanent or those born at the WBC member country or logic.
Also eligible to represent a national team are players who have at least one parent who is a national of that territory at the time of selection or in the past if there is one parent who was born in the area of the national team.
More than 11 million people live in the UAE, of which over 90 percent are immigrants. Besides that, there is one of the most multiethnic countries in the world, where people from more than 200 nationalities reside in the nation. As per YouGov, which is a global market research & data analytics firm, UAE has around 800000 fans of baseball.
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