The creation of world class cricket facilities at Dubai Sports City is one of the biggest technical challenges the sport has ever faced, says the Head Curator of the ICC Global Cricket Academy. The 25,000 seat stadium will host prestigious cricketing events from 2008. In parallel, the International Cricket Council will continue to develop its Global Cricket Academy in the world’s first purpose-built integrated sports city.

Dubai Sports City’s strategy is to provide the finest ever sports facilities. Cricket is to be a cornerstone sport, guaranteed to appeal to a worldwide audience happy to take advantage of the prime location of the U.A.E.

Tony Hemming, Head Curator of the ICC Global Cricket Academy, Dubai Sports City, is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the project. A particular challenge involves the creation of foreign-style cricket pitches, or wickets, to reproduce the exact conditions to be found overseas.

According to Hemming, “This is my biggest and most ambitious project to date. Thanks to Dubai Sports City, there are now the resources in place to produce foreign-style wickets in the desert – something that has never been attempted before.”

“The operation includes developing a specialist laboratory capable of supporting this activity, to the point where we can use climate control to make the turf an exact match for the practice needs of bowlers and batsmen” the Head Curator added.

In order to create the 28 specialist turf wickets, three different national soil types were imported to Dubai. An impressive 380 tons of Australian clay, 380 tons of clay from Pakistan and 180 tons of clay from England are en route to Dubai.

Under the strict control of the UAE government laboratory, the clay types will be screened for harmful nematodes, soil-based diseases and fungi such as fusarium. Once declared free of these threats, the soil will travel through the UAE in conditions designed to keep it entirely free of contamination by sand particles.

One of Hemming’s roles will be to oversee this transition, while ensuring that the substances involved lose none of the properties which make them suitable for particular styles of cricket. In the process, he will be training up a new generation of local cricket curators capable of exporting these skills and professional expertise anywhere in the world.

The Dubai Sports City Cricket Stadium and the ICC Global Cricket Academy will be fully operational before the end of 2008.