Dubai Cricket Stadium

After a few months of watching the occasional cricket match on TV and getting schooled by some of my co-workers on the rules and finer points of the game, I had a chance to go to my first live Cricket match. The match was held at the new Cricket Stadium in Dubai Sports City. I will say two good things about the evening:

1. The Cricket action was enjoyable to watch
2. There is not a bad seat in the stadium (unless you are being roasted by the afternoon sun, which was avoidable for most fans). But for veiwing the action--all good seats.

Now the not so good. Dubai Sports City consists of a cricket stadium and 20 square miles of construction. There are 3 ways into the place and they all merge into the same one lane road. It took about 45 mins to get to a parking 'space' once I arrived at the Cricket Stadium. That 'space'was in the middle of alot of sand and rocks. Now, there should have been shuttle buses to carry the fans from these remote desert, construction wastlands--I saw signs that said Shuttle Route--but I didn't see any buses. So I walked for about 20 mins until I finally came across a shuttle bus which carried me about 300 meters and then dropped us off another 300 meters from the stadium.

Everything around the stadium is unfinished--it's just a huge, dusty, gravel lot. They had security set up for screening the fans due to the fact the Pakistan Cricket team was fired upon last month in Pakistan (and also the reason why they were playing in the UAE). It was now close to start time and the line for the 'middle class seats' was stretched out two thousand people deep...with 2 screening positions. Same for the cheap seats. So I upgraded to a premium ticket which put me in a line about 20 deep, but still took 15 mins to get thru.

The short security line was the ONLY benefit of premium seats. You have the exact same view from the opposite side of the pitch as the Middle Class Seats. The stadium is spartan. Concessions were very limited: Popcorn or Nachos; Pepsi or 7UP. No Souvenier stands. You could have done better at any little league park in the USA. And you have to understand, a normal one day cricket match lasts 8 hours--people get hungry.

As for the cricket, it was enjoyable and the crowd was into it. Australia beat Pakistan (avenging a loss 2 nights earlier). The stadium was 90% full, with an announced crowd of about 24,000.

Afterwards, there was no shuttle bus. I walked 25 mins in the dark to my truck. Drove over an unfinished curb to get on a road and into the traffic jam. At one point the police directed us to use both lanes of a 2-way street--except they never stopped the opposite direction traffic which consisted mostly of construction vehicles. 45 mins to get to the highway--10 mins to get home.

At the time I swore I would wait til they finished construction before I went to another cricket match; but I have since been talked into going again. This time the shorter version (3-4 hrs) known as 20Twenty. Stay tuned.