in 11 tests at the venue pakistan have lost only threeimages of former cricket greats inside the premises of the dubai international stadium image toi photowhen that unfortunate incident took place the stadium was not even fully ready and it was handed over to us to manage and host events back in 2009 we were nearing completion but there was quite a bit of work remaining hanif tells toi sports when that incident took place i think for pakistan it was a natural choice because of the close proximity and the number of pakistanis who are based here and working here there is a good sizeable pakistan community here plus its just 15 hours away from karachi via flight so people can travel and all cricketing fans can come over here and watch the team play it wasnt a difficult decision since they realised that it will be difficult to host cricket in pakistan i think we became a natural choice having three venues dubai abu dhabi and sharjah it provided a good alternate option for pakistan and their crickethanif who came to dubai in 2009 at a time when the entire sports city was under construction and most of the area around was only a desert adds that the transition was surprisingly easy the fact that iccs headquarters was based out of dubai just a kilometre away from the stadium helped smooth out the process security concerns were plenty as expected but because of the good rapport between the board and the dubai sports city choosing dubai as one of pakistans primary cricket homes was a foregone conclusioniccs only concerns were over the security but once the officials were here and they conducted a proper check of the ground and all it all eased out hanif says they have zerotolerance when it comes to players security plus the relationship between dubai and pakistan has always been a healthy one so i think whatever support and requirements had to be fulfilled as far as recognising dubai sports city as an international venue and to host test matches and odis we achieved all that without muss hassle and thats why pakistan was able to host immediately after that incident we hosted the pakistanaustralia odi series in aprilmay 2009 and never looked backthe dubai cricket stadium has been a succesful hunting ground for pakistan cricket getty imagesindeed in nine years pakistan and the uae have blossomed into a romantic story they have never lost a test series here since making it their adopted home in 2010 six teams have tried previously and six teams have failed they have stonewalled barricaded intimidated and done whatever necessary to maintain their record straight while many doubted whether their cricket would thrive with international cricket taken away from them pakistan have only progressed onward and upward in a way that they eventually got to the top of the test rankings albeit briefly however all of it did come at a cost developement of cricket back