OMAN

Oman’s capital can claim the title of the driest city in the cricket-playing world, traditionally leading to rough and unsafe surfaces. So perhaps it is no surprise that the country’s best-known Arab cricketer, HH Qais bin Khalid Al Said, a cousin of the Sultan, learned the game at Millfield School rather than Muscat. But now Al Emerat, the first fully turf ground in the Sultanate, has been assiduously prepared for the new season. For the first time, fielders will be able to attack the ball, rather than edge in tentatively from the boundary trying to predict bounce and trajectory on scorched-earth ground. Batsmen and bowlers will finally get off matting wickets, and learn to deal with spin and seam. When Oman finished 15th out of 16 at the 2012 World Twenty20 qualifying tournament, the sports ministry expressed their “deep disappointment”, and enquired why more Omani nationals had not been considered for selection. As in many Gulf states, league matches are often subcontinental corporate affairs between expat semi-professionals – with a single token Omani thrown in to satisfy league membership regulations. Yet Oman has the best record in the Middle East for producing indigenous cricketers: around 200 of the 1,100 regular players in the country are Arabs. Oman is the only country in the region to insist upon three nationals in their representative youth sides from 16 upwards. And, as coaches head into schools, more and more Arab boys and girls are discovering, to their surprise, that this peculiar game is their nation’s most successful international sport. Paul Bird, Wisden 2013