Former Australia cricketer Adam Gilchrist pledges sponsorship to UAE-based athletes

The Adam Gilchrist Sports Award will provide for University of Wollongong Dubai students - swimmer Sarra Lajnef and cricketer Shivank Vijaykumar, writes Paul Radley.

Adam Gilchrist, centre, on Sunday visited the University of Wollongong in Dubai to present the university’s third annual sports award named after him. This year’s recipients were swimmer Sarra Lajnef and cricketer Shivank Vijaykumar. Courtesy of Communicate Gulf
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DUBAI // Given the amount of selfies he was asked to pose for, and miniature bats he was tasked with signing, it was obvious Adam Gilchrist’s status as cricket royalty preceded him on his visit to University of Wollongong Dubai on Sunday.

Even Sarra Lajnef, a Tunisian swimmer who grew up in France and the United States, was starting to get the gist of the great Australian wicketkeeper’s celebrity.

Which is handy, seeing as the university student is targeting a place at next year’s Rio Olympics as a result of a scholarship awarded by Gilchrist.

“We don’t know about cricket in Tunisia,” said Lajnef, 25, who became the first woman to compete for the north African country in Olympic swimming, at London 2012.

“For me cricket was new when I got [to Dubai in 2013] and discovered it was a big sport. It was a pleasure to meet an international athlete like him.”

After reviving her swimming career this summer with a medal haul at the Fina Masters World Championships in Russia, she now aims to make the B-qualifying standard for Rio.

The Adam Gilchrist Sports Award will provide for 50 per cent of her tuition fees, allowing her to focus on training, as well as studying for a masters in international business.

It will be the difference between her pursuing the Olympics and not, given she has had her funding cut by her home federation.

“When I arrived here in 2013 I was tired of it, so I thought I would get into work,” she said.

“The Masters was going to be my competition to decide whether I wanted to get back or finish for good. My times were not as good as my best times, but they were close. That made me want to go back to the Olympics.”

This is the third year of Gilchrist’s award, and the first time two recipients have benefited from it. As per the previous two times, there was a wicketkeeper-batsman.

The reaction of Shivank Vijaykumar, an aspiring UAE national team cricketer, to Gilchrist was the polar opposite to Lajnef’s.

“He was one of the reasons I took up wicketkeeping,” said Vijaykumar, who hopes to be part of the future of UAE cricket having represented the national team at age-group level for years.

“I always wanted to be like him, the coolness he had on the field, the fact the camera was always on him.

“When I met him I froze. I didn’t know whether to shake his hand or what I should do. Then he said ‘Shivank?’ And I was like, ‘He knows my name!’ I couldn’t believe it and didn’t know what to say.”

pradley@thenational.ae

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