With cricket’s inclusion in the Asian Games and the upcoming 2028 Olympics, the focus of Oman Cricket board is now to build a team comprised entirely of Omani talent. It’s noteworthy that with cricket’s inclusion in the Asian Games and the upcoming Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, eligibility to participate is limited to national players or passport holders. This contrasts with ICC events, where expatriates become eligible to represent the national team after completing a specific period of residence in the respective country.
Duleep Mendis, Oman Cricket’s Chief Development Officer, expressed confidence in this venture: “Our aim is to cultivate a national team composed solely of Omani players. We’ve meticulously chosen this initial group of 16 individuals with an aim to have a pool of 20. We will be providing them with the same resources and opportunities available to our national senior team. We have started this mission to have an Omani team play at the Asian Games and at the Olympics in future. These 16 have been selected from the seven all-Omani teams that feature in our domestic league. The seven teams also play an all-Omani league among themselves. We will begin their training sessions from mid-December, and we hope that some of them will be good enough to play for the senior national team in the years to come at the ICC events.”
Alongside training sessions, plans are underway for bilateral series against lower-ranked T20I teams and a GCC tournament for the team.
All-Omani Development Squad: Sufyan Mehmood, Sadiq Abdul Majeed, Majid Hussain, Qais Khalid, Arif Abdul Majeed, Waheed Khalid, Issa Raheem Al Balushi, Naveed Abdul Majeed, Waleed Raheem Al Balushi, Shoaib Ismail Al Balushi, Zubair Ali Akbar Al Balushi, Mohammed Ali Akbar Al Balushi, Imran Ismail Al Balushi, Moeed Abdul Majeed, Ahmed Al Zadjali and Waseem Ismail Al Balushi
