UAEWorld

Sharjah Stadium: UAE’s Iconic Sporting Venue

Sharjah Cricket Stadium: A Symbol of Asian Cricketing Heritage

The 2600 sq km city of Sharjah, which lies in Sharjah, borders Iran to the south on the Persian Gulf coast. Because of its historical sites and cultural events, Sharjah has been recognized to as the “cultural center” of the United Arab Emirates since 1998. The most significant tourist destination in the Islamic and Arab world is this city, which has managed to improve its reputation in those regions.

Sharjah Football Stadium

The majority of football games are played at the multi-use Sharjah Stadium. This stadium is under the ownership of Sharjah Football Club and it is also the home stadium of this club. There are 20,000 seats available at this stadium. Sharjah Club, which is also known as the King because of winning the most championships in the UAE President’s Cup, is one of the professional clubs present in the Premier Football League of the Emirates with 6 championship titles.

Sharjah Football Stadium
Sharjah Football Stadium

Sharjah Cricket Stadium

The Sharjah Cricket Stadium was erected in the early 1980s in the UAE emirate of Sharjah. Following India’s World Cup victory in 1983, one-day cricket’s popularity skyrocketed, and this Stadium rapidly established itself as a regular venue for competitions. The stadium played host to 198 ODIs and four Test matches between 1984 and 2003, drawing sizable audiences, mostly from the area’s sizable Asian immigrant community. Pakistan played games there in 2002 because of political unrest at home.

Sharjah Cricket Stadium, UAE
Sharjah Cricket Stadium, UAE

Additionally, it featured competitions for Masters (veterans) and other backup players. The Cricketers Benefit Fund Series (CBFS), which was founded in 1981 by Abdul Rahman Bukhatir, oversaw all of the matches. Its main goal was to honor Indian and Pakistani cricketers of the past and present generations with benefit purses in recognition of their contributions to the game of cricket. The stadium had just a few sparse seats and extremely basic amenities when it first opened, but by 2002 it had 27,000 seats with floodlights.

Although nothing was ever proven, teams started to leave Sharjah as the match-fixing controversies started to surface in the late 1990s. In 2001, the Indian government forbade the national team from playing there. The location did not hold any international competitions between April 2003 and February 2010, but that changed when Associates started to play there and Pakistan needed an offshore site due to security issues in their nation. Along with Dubai and Abu Dhabi, it is currently one of the international sites in the UAE and has even regained its Test responsibilities.

Sharjah Cricket Stadium
Sharjah Cricket Stadium

Conclusion

United Arab Emirates’ Sharjah has a multi-use stadium called Sharjah Stadium. It serves as the home field for Sharjah FC and is mostly utilized for football games at the moment. The stadium can hold 18,000 people.

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