The other day I wrote about how picturesque the Dubai Sports City Cricket Stadium is and showed some of the pics of the stadium before and after the completion of the construction.

Dubai's community has give the ground a nick name - The Ring of Fire.

The following views from the inside and outside will tell you why.

The Ring of Fire is ready to host Pakistan and Australia!

The Dubai Sports City Cricket Stadium, which will host 2 ODIs and a 20-20 match between Pakistan and Australia later this month, is one of the most picturesque cricket grounds you will ever see.

Here's a neat article about the state of cricket in the UAE.

What's neater is that the reporter mentions his talk with my brother who is the captain of the Abu Dhabi U-19 team.

Have a read!

Who would be interested in a cricket tournament that involves teams from places as diverse as Denmark, Uganda, Namibia, Bermuda, and Oman?

Not many.

"Do these countries even play cricket?" is the common response you get from majority of the cricket followers.

When you tell them that Afghanistan has a cricket team that has against all odds managed to get to the qualifying competition for the 2011 World Cup, you manage to attract some attention.

Which is lost again when they hear that the Nertherlands, UAE, Kenya, Scotland, Ireland, and Canada are also trying to qualify.

"But they have played World Cups before and never done anything. Why do they even try?" is another reaction that is quite common.

Well, Kenya managed to reach the semi-finals in 2003.

Ireland managed to kick Pakistan out of the 2007 World Cup.

A Canadian batsmen made the fastest world cup century.

A UAE opener smashed Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis out of the park on several occasions.

These few achievements have not been enough to convince the cricket watching public that the associate nations are good enough to compete among the best in a World Cup.

These people have a point and their reactions are valid to some extent.

What happened to Kenya after they reached the Semis?

There was potential to build that team. The platform was set. They could have developed into a world class ODI outfit.

It did not happen though.

Had the administrators tried to develop the game in Kenya by providing them better facilities and more international games, maybe they would not have been in a position where they would have had to try and qualify for another world cup.

They are former semi-finalists for God's sake!

Afghanistan has shown a lot of promise throughout their matches in the World Leagues leading upto the ICC Qualifiers.

That promise needs to be developed further.

Afghanistan should not go the way Kenya did after 2003.

Funding, development, facilities, coaches, whatever they need. It should be provided.

I know its the recession but the big bux are still being raked in by some cricket boards. I don't need to mention them.

Good use is utilizing it for developing these associate nations that show potential to be world beaters.

I have lived in the UAE all my life almost and I have seen their cricket develop slower than a snail's pace. In fact a snail seems to take strides in front of how the game has developed here.

The UAE have appeared in a World Cup and in almost all the qualifying competitions.

Yet their cricketers still play on cement wickets and sandy outfields.

Why? Why is their no support for the associate nations? Where does the money from the "development fund" go?

There are still only 2 international stadiums in the UAE, out of which one is banned and the other has hosted a handful of ODIs. A 3rd one is about to host its first.

Why has there been so much inaction?

I cannot blame the cricket watching public for being un-interested or ignorant about the matches played by associate nations.

How can we expect them to take the likes of Kenya, Afghanistan, and the UAE seriously when the administrators themselves don't?

There's a lot of potential out there. A lot of promise. A lot of opportunity.

We just need the right people to tap into it the right way!

Pakistan 135-4 in 22 overs vs Hong Kong

Bangladesh 105-1 in 23 vs UAE

Does this mean that Hong Kong's bowling is stronger than UAE's or that Bangladesh's batting is stronger than Pakistan's?

Decide for yourself.

Salman Butt went off the 3rd ball of Pakistan's innings.

Shoaib Malik labored to 9 runs of 16 balls before smashing 6 boundaries in his next 11 before getting out.

Mohammad Yousuf just got out to a top edged sweep and in the next over Younis Khan got stumped - these were the last overs right now.

In the other game, pacer Zahid Shah broke through in the 3rd over sending back Nazimuddin caught at 2nd slip by Arshad Ali.

Tamim Iqbal and Ashraful are currently sharing an unbroken 2nd wicket partnership of 103 runs.

As most of you know, I have lived in the UAE for the last 25 years and have been associated with domestic cricket in the country having played Division B cricket since 2002 in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

During this time I have played against some of the cricketers that are a part of the UAE team taking part in the Asia Cup.

Thus, through first hand experience of playing with these players, here is a brief introduction on who they are.

Saqib Ali

Originally from Rawal Pindi, Saqib Ali is the captain of the UAE. I'm not sure why Cricinfo is listing Arshad Ali as the captain. It is most definitely Saqib Ali.

I first played against Saqib Ali about 4 years ago when he was still a student at SZABIST University at the Dubai Knowledge Village.

It was a friendly match between the University team and the 'Young Pakistan Professionals Cricket Club', which I was a part of. Saqib didn't score much against us then.

The next time I played against Saqib was in last year's 20-20 cricket tournament where I was playing for Babcock, an engineering firm, and Saqib opened for the 'New Medical Centre' team.

By then Saqib Ali was captaining the UAE and had become one of the best batsmen in the country, and he showed why in his knock of 93 against us.

A strong middle order batsman, Saqib recently made the headlines with a career best 195 in a first class match against a touring Ireland team.

In 10 first class matches, Saqib Ali has scored 940 runs at an average of 55.29 with 4 centuries and 3 fifities.

Amjad Ali

The wicketkeeper of the UAE, Amjad Ali is originally from Lahore, where he will be playing against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in the Asia Cup.

Amjad is a left handed batsman an opens the batting for the UAE as he does for his domestic teams. He ended the current domestic season in blistering form with a number of centuries one after another.

I played against him 2 months ago in a Division B cricket tournament where I was playing for 'ACE Cricket Club'.

Going into the match against 'United Bank Limited', we had all heard about Amjad Ali's centuries in the previous 3 matches. Luckily for us we managed to get him out in the 2nd over for only 1 as he tried to cut a short ball only to spoon it to point for an easy catch.

He went on to score a couple more 100s in the following matches.

His first class average of 22.25 doesn't say much about Amjad Ali, but you can expect some firing starts from the UAE if he gets going.

Vikrant Shetty

One of the younger members of the UAE squad, Vikrant is originally from Mumbai and is a hard hitting middle order batsman.

He plays for 'Arab Udupi' in the domestic leagues, which is a strong team in Division A cricket and has won a number of cricket tournaments.

I played against Vikrant in last years 20-20 cricket tournament, where he smashed my part time leg spin for 4 sixes in 1 over. I beat him 1st ball but then saw the next 4 sail over my head. He picked a single of the last one. He scored a quickfire 40 odd against us.

Vikrant is yet to play a first class or List A game for the UAE.

Alawi Shukri

One of the few local Emiratis in the team, Alawi Shukri, is an 18 year old talented middle order batsman.

I haven't played against him but have seen him play against my brother in matches involving U19 teams from the different Emirates.

He is yet to play a first-class or list A match for the UAE but he has been in the news recently for setting up a cricket club for UAE Nationals and for becoming the youngest cricket official in the country.

Alawi Shukri has also been campaigning for a quota system for UAE's selections and he got his wish when the UAE made it mandatory to have 4 local Emiratis in a touring squad.

Besides Shukri, the other UAE Nationals in the squad are batsmen Mohammad Tauqir and Salman Farooq, and fast bowler Fahad Al Hashmi.

The UAE kick off their 2nd Asia Cup campaign against Bangladesh tomorrow in Lahore.