Ahead of the 2015 Cricket World Cup, Paul Radley details the travel hurdles faced by teams in the trans-Tasman tournament being staged in Australia and New Zealand.
It is a good thing the UAE have always had a variety of airline flight staff at the core of their team.
Experienced flyers will be a valuable commodity at a World Cup that involves an extraordinary amount of air travel.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) is doing its bit to keep Australasia’s airlines in business over the next two weeks.
Anyone wanting follow their team would be advised to pack some flight socks, a couple of tubes of Pringles and a copy of War and Peace on Kindle because there is going to be plenty of time to kill in departure lounges across Australia and New Zealand.
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Only three teams – India, Afghanistan and Scotland – play consecutive fixtures at the same venue. They still pack in the miles on the rest of their trip, though.
Afghanistan travel more than anyone, nearly 15,000 kilometres between their six scheduled group venues.
Even the hosts are not spared. Well, New Zealand are, by dint of the size of their country – as well as the fact they welcome the other co-hosts, Australia, to Auckland for their pool fixture on February 28. But all of Australia’s five journeys, by contrast, exceed 1,050km.
Back in 1996, the last time the UAE played at a World Cup, all travel was within Pakistan.
The national team journeyed 778km between the five cities at which they played.
In the most recent subcontinental World Cup, on their way to winning the title, India’s group matches took in trips that covered a total of 6,099km.
Such a heavy schedule will be old hat for many of the UAE players with the vice captain, Khurram Khan, most likely to find it a breeze.
His day job is with Emirates Airline cabin crew and Khurram regularly jets in ahead of UAE matches from distant destinations.
When he set the world record as the oldest one-day centurion, against Afghanistan in Dubai in December, he had been in San Francisco the day before the series started.
There are two others Emirates Airline employees in the squad, Amjad Javed and Krishnachandran Karate, although both are based on the ground as part of the cargo department.
Aaqib Javed, the UAE team’s coach, is unconcerned by the excesses of the flight plan, reasoning that the players are conditioned to busy schedules as part of everyday life.
“I think they will be in control,” said Aaqib, who is attending his eighth World Cup as a player or coach so is well used to living out of a suitcase.
“If you go through their daily routines, it is much tougher than the World Cup schedule. They will be relaxed. I am not worried about that.”
Thankfully, the UAE players now have an extended back-room staff to assist them with more than just throw-downs at nets, or feeding the bowling machine.
Qualifying for the World Cup unlocked a significant sum of ICC high-performance funding, meaning they have been able to employ a variety of specialist staff.
Peter Kelly, a Dubai-based rugby player from New Zealand, will be tasked with monitoring the conditioning of the players throughout the tournament.
Mohammed Tauqir, the team captain, said this remit would extend to the time away from the playing field, as well.
“There is a lot of travelling, which is a new thing for us to adapt to,” Tauqir said.
“We are lucky to have Peter Kelly with us. On the flights he will be telling us to keep drinking water to make sure we stay hydrated and don’t get cramp.
“There may be a lot of travel, but in between there are a lot of off days, also.
“Let’s see how we cope with it. It is part and parcel of international cricket.”
pradley@thenational.ae
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