Given the gloom that has pervaded the senior men’s UAE cricket team of late, a new dash of colour and can-do spirit should be embraced keenly.
On his first tour with the senior side, Aryansh Sharma is already providing both. The 18-year-old wicketkeeper-batter served 12th-man duties with all the eagerness you might expect of a teenaged trialist, in UAE’s loss against Papua New Guinea in the opening match of their tour to Kathmandu on Friday.
His mint-green boots provide the sparkle. And his enthusiasm to make an impression is just as vivid.
Sharma does not know whether he will get the chance to play in the vital Cricket World Cup League 2 tri-series, but he is grateful to be in with a shout.
Last week, he was part of the UAE side who missed out on qualification for the Under 19 World Cup after a thrilling, if ultimately heartbreaking, game against Nepal in Ajman.
He found out he was set to tour Nepal with the senior team after making a half-century against Singapore in that event.
“It felt amazing because I was the only guy from the U19 side this time who made it into the men’s team,” Sharma said.
“It was overwhelming, and I would like to get a debut game for the team as well now. If I get that, I will try to perform my best.
“I had some nerves but then we had a team meeting and all my new teammates were very friendly with me. From that time onwards I have felt very confident.
“Since then I am just hoping that we win and hopefully we can do well in the series.”
Their start was a poor one. The national team suffered a third consecutive defeat to PNG in the space of two weeks when they went lost out at Tribhuvan University.
They face Nepal at the same venue on Sunday knowing they have to win that, as well as the remaining two games which follow, to safeguard their one-day international status.
Anything less will mean having to vie for that right with PNG, Jersey and Canada at the World Cup Qualifier Play-off in Namibia later this month.
Given the stress of what is at stake, Sharma is glad to have a few familiar faces around for his debut tour.
He is a first-year student at Manipal Academy of Higher Education in Dubai, a seat of learning that has also been attended by fellow tourists Ashwanth Valthapa, Karthik Meiyappan and Aryan Lakra.
Plus, there is fellow teen Aayan Khan, who was his captain in the U19s side last week.
“We were teammates in the last [U19 World Cup in the Caribbean] and in the U19 [Qualifier] he was my captain,” Sharma said.
“It is good to share a dressing room with him and I have got to learn a lot from him because he is a regular senior player. It is good to be around him.
“When I see him, it makes me feel like the U19 kids also have the potential to get into the UAE men’s team, and do really well. Seeing him do that inspired me.
“From now onwards, the journey begins for me, and hopefully I can have a very good cricketing journey.”
Sharma, who lists his new teammate Vriitya Aravind alongside Virat Kohli among his role models in cricket, was born in Ghaziabad, near Delhi, but came to UAE with his family aged two.
He says his initial impressions of Kathmandu remind him of his birthplace.
“Where I am from in India, this place is similar to that,” Sharma said.
“It gives me the vibes of my own place. I feel like Nepal is also my home, so it would be good to play over here. Hopefully, I get a game.
“Nepal and India are similar to each other. If I see anywhere in this country, I feel like, OK, this is similar to India. I feel at home.”
THE BIO
Age: 33
Favourite quote: “If you’re going through hell, keep going” Winston Churchill
Favourite breed of dog: All of them. I can’t possibly pick a favourite.
Favourite place in the UAE: The Stray Dogs Centre in Umm Al Quwain. It sounds predictable, but it honestly is my favourite place to spend time. Surrounded by hundreds of dogs that love you - what could possibly be better than that?
Favourite colour: All the colours that dogs come in
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
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From Europe to the Middle East, economic success brings wealth - and lifestyle diseases
A rise in obesity figures and the need for more public spending is a familiar trend in the developing world as western lifestyles are adopted.
One in five deaths around the world is now caused by bad diet, with obesity the fastest growing global risk. A high body mass index is also the top cause of metabolic diseases relating to death and disability in Kuwait, Qatar and Oman – and second on the list in Bahrain.
In Britain, heart disease, lung cancer and Alzheimer’s remain among the leading causes of death, and people there are spending more time suffering from health problems.
The UK is expected to spend $421.4 billion on healthcare by 2040, up from $239.3 billion in 2014.
And development assistance for health is talking about the financial aid given to governments to support social, environmental development of developing countries.
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
Five famous companies founded by teens
There are numerous success stories of teen businesses that were created in college dorm rooms and other modest circumstances. Below are some of the most recognisable names in the industry:
- Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg and his friends started Facebook when he was a 19-year-old Harvard undergraduate.
- Dell: When Michael Dell was an undergraduate student at Texas University in 1984, he started upgrading computers for profit. He starting working full-time on his business when he was 19. Eventually, his company became the Dell Computer Corporation and then Dell Inc.
- Subway: Fred DeLuca opened the first Subway restaurant when he was 17. In 1965, Mr DeLuca needed extra money for college, so he decided to open his own business. Peter Buck, a family friend, lent him $1,000 and together, they opened Pete’s Super Submarines. A few years later, the company was rebranded and called Subway.
- Mashable: In 2005, Pete Cashmore created Mashable in Scotland when he was a teenager. The site was then a technology blog. Over the next few decades, Mr Cashmore has turned Mashable into a global media company.
- Oculus VR: Palmer Luckey founded Oculus VR in June 2012, when he was 19. In August that year, Oculus launched its Kickstarter campaign and raised more than $1 million in three days. Facebook bought Oculus for $2 billion two years later.
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