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Emirates Cricket Board name Lalchand Rajput as UAE cricket team coach

Emirates Cricket Board has appointed Lalchand Rajput as the national cricket team coach
21 Feb 2024 11:27

KUUMAR SHYAM (Abu Dhabi)

When Muhammad Waseem, the national cricket team captain, took the best UAE player award – for the second successive time – at the conclusion of the International League Twenty20 (ILT20), one man was more keenly following the ceremony in the Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) box at the Dubai International Stadium on Saturday.


India’s Lalchand Rajput is an accomplished coach, and is taking over the UAE team’s charge next in an illustrious career. He is in Dubai to get his “golden visa through a friend”, he told Aletihad on Sunday, while neither denying nor confirming the development. 


Post the hangover from the conclusion of the ILT20, the ECB announced on Wednesday that Rajput will be the next national coach to officially replace Robin Singh, after exactly 11 months to the date the latter's term ended. Former Pakistan all-rounder Mudassar Nazar held fort in the intervening period.


Speaking to Aletihad, Rajput accepted the congratulatory message and said it has been a busy week as the ECB has been wrapping up with the ILT20 while Nazar was in Malaysia with the women’s cricket team.

Incidentally, as Rajput watched, Robin Singh also took part in the celebrations with Waseem as their franchise MI Emirates won the ILT20 title in the second season of the UAE’s premier league in the T20 format. It is already the second-richest cricket league with a mandate to have four cricketers from the country in each of the six teams.

“I want to thank the Emirates Cricket Board for appointing me for this exciting role," Rajput said in a official statement. "UAE has emerged as one of the stronger Associate Members in recent years and the players have put in some good performances in both ODIs and T20Is. The current batch is exceptionally talented and I look forward to working with them and further harnessing their cricket skills.

“I am confident that the boys buoyed by their exposure to top quality cricket and practice facilities here in Dubai will continue to prosper, UAE cricket has a very bright future and my goal would be to make the team perform more consistently and take them to the next level which I am very confident they are fully capable of.”

ECB General Secretary Mubashshir Usmani said: “We are confident that under his coaching UAE men’s cricket will flourish further. I also want to take this opportunity to thank Mudassar Nazar for his stellar work as the interim head coach. Mudassar will now return to his role as Head of the National Academy Programme where he will continue to identify and groom our future stars.”

The immediate assignment for the incoming coach will be the Cricket World Cup League 2, a feeder line into the qualification process for the 50-over ICC World Cup. The next engagement is against Canada and Scotland.

Rajput was at the helm in 2007 when India won the first World Cup in the T20 format, one which suits better for the players in the UAE. As a former Test opening batsman and having coached national teams of Afghanistan and Zimbabwe during their stupendous rise into the ICC elite, Rajput should be an ideal choice.

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