Organisers releasing the T-Shirts of the participating teams. Picture: Jayaram
By Ramesh Mathew
Staff Reporter
A six-team limited overs cricket tournament involving expatriates will be one of the major activities related to Qatar National Day celebrations on December 18.
Besides title holders Pakistan and runners-up Bangladesh, teams representing India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Qatar will battle it out for honours in the 15 overs per side knock-out tournament at West End Park between 7 am and 10 pm. The final match is expected to be played between 6pm and 9pm.
At a briefing chaired by Lt Salim Rasheed al-Attiya at the Officers Club of the Directorate of the Civil Defence on Wednesday, Head of the Cricket Organising Committee Azeem Abbas said the event expected to draw a massive crowd like last year, when there were four teams.
"Our expectations are that the attendance at this year's tournament would exceed even last year's figure of more than 10,500 spectators. Cricket tournament was the biggest attraction among the sport events held last year," said Abbas while hoping that more families and bachelors would visit the West End Park stadium this time.
Abbas said the organisers expected about 15,000 spectators.
The number of participating teams has increased to six this year because of the increased following for cricket in Qatar, he said.
The organising committee official said spectators would be allowed to the stadium through Gates 1, 3 and 5 (all for bachelors) and Gate 7 (for families).
While Pakistan and Bangladesh teams have been seeded directly to the penultimate round, two other semi-finals would be decided from the knock-out matches between India and Nepal, and Sri Lanka and Qatar.
Pakistan will take on the winners of the India-Nepal match in the semi-finals, while Bangladesh will play the qualifiers from the match between Qatar and Sri Lanka. The fixtures for the matches were drawn in front of the gathering on Wednesday.
Abbas said that special buses will run from the parking grounds of Family Food Centre (Airport Road), DPS-MIS, Al Wakra and Home Center, Fareej Abdul Azeez, to the stadium.
Lt Al-Attiya said the tournament coincides with the Qatar National Day celebrations and honours the contributions made by residents towards building Qatar.
Through such activities, the Ministry of Interior hopes to build strong partnerships between the ministry and people of different nationalities, explained Lt Al-Attiya.
At Wednesday’s meeting, organisers also released T-shirts of the six teams and unveiled trophies for the winners and runners-up.
Zaheer Abbas to be chief guest at final
Pakistan cricketer of yesteryear Zaheer Abbas will be the chief guest at the final of the limited overs cricket tournament at West End Park on December 18.
Abbas, who retired in 1984 after more than 15 years of cricket, had scored more than 5000 runs (including 12 centuries) from 78 Tests.
Organisers said Abbas will hand over trophies to the tournament winners and runners-up.
A prize money of QR20,000 would be given to the teams, of which the winners will receive QR7,000, runners-up QR4,000 and the third-placed team QR3,000. The other three teams will share the remaining QR6000.
