Oh Sharjah!

The Sharjah Stadium, holder for hosting the maximum number of ODI’s, added another feather to its illustrious cap when it became the first venue in the world to host 200 one day internationals. Sharjah, which hosted its first match in 1984, was built painstakingly in edifice and reputation by Abdul Rehman Bukhatir, reached the milestone in 24 years(1986-2010) should have reached it much earlier.

On Feb. 18, Sharjah breached the milestone, with the ODI between, can you believe Afghanistan Canada!! It’s a shame that 200 was reached via a match of extremely low significance .Although I must add that it was a thriller of a match that the Afghans won by 1 run. Sharjah entertained, true to its DNA.

Sharjah also has the unique distinction of having two tied games in, the last one between Pakistan and Sri Lanka which I saw live. It is also the venue of that last ball six by Javed Miandad in Australasia cup finals v India in 1986, which established the legend of the venue. An oasis in the gulf.

But for me, Sharjah now is synonymous with the Coca-Cola Cup 1998, which gave us the stage for Sachin Tendulkar’s back-to-back invaluable gems

The Sandstorm innings (143) and the Birthday innings (134), the day after against the Australians. It was something else those innings, magical, impervious batting.

I remember reading in the papers the next day after the sandstorm innings -

India lost ,Australia won and Sachin won.

India as a policy has stopped playing at neutral venues after the Hansie Cronje match fixing scandal broke .So since 2000, it doesn’t go to earlier popular venues -Toronto, Abu Dhabi, Nairobi, Singapore or Sharjah. However India did play a tri-series in Kuala Lumpur in 06’with the West Indies and Australia. And India not coming to Sharjah is the worst thing to have happened to the stadium. It may be play quasi host of Pakistan, but unless India plays, the money and enthusiasm will not come easily.

Also,over the last decade, it's thunder has been stolen by more enterprising emirates –

Dubai’s Sport City Stadium and Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Zayed Stadium .Sharjah would have continued to be one of the leading international venues had it wouldn’t have become such a hotbed for bookies and a haven for fixed matches. By conservative estimates, 20 % of the matches were fixed. No big surprise that.

After all, it was Dawood Ibrahim’s backyard in the 80’s where famously he was photographed in the stadium aisle with his associates and also yesteryear starlet Mandakini. For years that is the only archival footage that intelligence agencies had of him.

Sharjah was a stadium started with noble intentions (it has an ex- cricketers beneficiary fund), flourished immensely leaving MCG and SCG far behind and then fell victim, almost inevitably to the match fixing fiasco and its aftermath and the subsequent economics of cricket politics.