Rameez Shahzad skips downtime from West Indies series to help shape UAE's next generation

Given the soaring temperatures plus their arduous workload on the field, the UAE national team’s cricketers would have been forgiven for putting their feet up whenever time permits this week.

Especially Rameez Shahzad, who was forced to retire hurt during the first one-day international of their three-game series against West Indies in Sharjah on Sunday.

The team themselves have suffered two bruising defeats so far against their illustrious opponents, while Rameez suffered a literal blow when he was hit on the head by a well-directed bouncer from Odean Smith.

Rather than sit inside and lick his wounds, though, he has been back out in the heat, doing what he can to help bring about what he hopes will be a lasting impact on the game here.

The 35-year-old batter is one of three UAE internationals who have started a new training centre, called Zenith Cricket Academy. On Wednesday afternoon, the day after the second ODI, he was running the rule over the academy’s high-performance players, who are enrolled in a progamme called “Road to UAE”.

The premise is that Rameez, Salman Farooq and Nasir Aziz – his fellow coaches – will be able to draw on their own experiences in the game here to help guide those aspiring to follow them.

“Growing up I played a lot of cricket in UAE and I thought, ‘What can we do differently in our training?’,” Rameez said.

“We would do nets for 10 or 15 minutes, bowl for a bit, field for a bit, then go back home. It is the same process, over and over. It keeps on going.

“The question is how can we get the best youngsters and what can we do to improve that? I was coaching at an academy, and changed the set up a bit so the kids would bat for an hour or more.

“They were begging, saying, ‘We don’t want to bat