KT Exclusive: Decision on Abu Dhabi T10 fan attendance next week

The decision on allowing spectators to attend the Abu Dhabi T10 League will be known sometime next week, Matthew Boucher, CEO of Abu Dhabi Cricket, revealed on Wednesday.

In an exclusive interview with the Khaleej Times, Boucher, who is also advisor to the Abu Dhabi Sports Council (ADSC), said that they will be guided by the Government regarding spectators’ attendance at the tournament.

The fourth instalment of the League and the second iteration in the UAE capital will take place from January 28 to February 6, 2021.

“Obviously, the pandemic is moving in a daily motion. We will hear about the government guidance, the government will guide us regarding crowd capacity, at the end of next week. We will be interested in hosting spectators but only in accordance with the necessary protocols,” said Boucher.

Boucher also revealed that a different set of Covid protocols will be put in place for the tournament, as compared to the Indian Premier League (IPL), which the UAE had hosted from September to November.

“The protocols have moved somewhat from the IPL. The IPL was three tests within six days together with the departure tests. So, we have made the departure test protocol, the arrival test protocol and then three tests in three days when all the teams and all the players will serve the isolation period. So, on day three evening or on day four, upon completion of the requisite testing, the teams will be able to practice and exercise and join their team owners. So, for the safety of all involved, we are implementing a three-day isolation period from arrival to the start of training upon the conclusion of the requisite negative testing, daily negative PCR testing. Once they are through the third night, into day four, there will be testing every 48 hours for everybody involved,” he elaborated.

Boucher also said that they had gleaned a lot from hosting the IPL in a bio-secure bubble and felt that India’s franchise tournament was the benchmark when it came to biosecurity.

“The IPL and certainly the biosecurity attempted at the IPL was the gold standard of sport events delivery. We now have this gold standard to learn from as our foundation, moving forward. It goes without saying that biosecurity cannot be compromised. The agreed zoning between teams, players, guests, officials and broadcast is incredibly important and how we managed the sanitisation of our venues, how we managed our social distancing and how we managed our testing process together with our brilliant partners at VPS Healthcare. So, all of those areas of event delivery, we learnt a lot about during the IPL. We now have that as our starting blocks, we have wireless technology, we have movement technology in the host hotels, in the practice facilities, in the stadium facilities, in the changing rooms, we are notified immediately if players are in the wrong areas, for their safety, we are notified immediately, if there is over capacity in certain areas. So, we have now have a template moving forward and we have learnt a lot from it as we put it in place for all the cricket that will be hosted in Abu Dhabi,” he explained.

Following the draw and the Players’ Draft, the schedule for the tournament is likely to be announced on Monday.