The Emirates Cricket Board has added three major prizes to its collection. The International Cricket Council named the UAE as a triple winner at the ICC Development Awards 2025. The award ceremony took place in Edinburgh, Scotland during the ICC Annual Conference, which finished last weekend.
The ICC started these awards back in 2002. Each year they recognize the best work done by cricket boards in countries where the sport is still growing. This year’s global winners came from a group of regional nominees the ICC picked in June.
The Emirates Cricket Board took home its first prize for a program called the Girls U15 Academy League. The ICC called this the Marriott Bonvoy ICC Development Initiative of the Year. The program stands out because no one in the region had ever done anything like it before. It gave young girls in the UAE a real chance to compete in a structured league, creating opportunity, inclusion, and belief for girls who previously had little or no access to competitive sport.
The second prize the UAE won was the Emirates ICC Female Cricket Initiative of the Year. This award went to both the Emirates Cricket Board and Türkiye Cricket. Two countries sharing the award happened for the second year in a row. The UAE earned its share because of two programs that took cricket directly into schools and communities. One was the Interschool criiio Gulf Cup. The other was the Get into Cricket — Girls Only programme. Both programs grew after the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 inspired a nationwide movement to grow girls’ cricket across the UAE.
Türkiye Cricket won its share of the same award for hosting the biggest ICC Women’s Cricket Week celebration in all of Europe in 2025. More than 3,000 girls from 20 provinces across Türkiye took part in the event.
The third award went to the UAE Women’s cricket team for its history-making series against Zimbabwe. After gaining ODI status, the team played its first-ever 50-over format series. The UAE and Zimbabwe finished that series with two wins each. The UAE then followed it up by winning the T20I series 2-0. That result made UAE the first Associate Member to win a series on foreign soil against a higher-ranked Full Member nation.
ECB Board Member Zayed Abbas spoke proudly about what the team has achieved. He said these awards push the whole board to work even harder. He also pointed to the thousands of girls now playing cricket across the UAE as proof that the development programs are working. The ECB plans to keep growing, with goals including the ACC Women’s Asia Cup 2026 and qualification for the ICC Women’s T20 and ODI World Cups.
ICC Chairman Jay Shah praised all the winners, saying the awards show how cricket can inspire participation, create opportunity, and strengthen communities across every region.
For the UAE, winning three global awards in one year marks a real turning point. The country has built something lasting in women’s cricket, and the results on the field prove the development work is paying off.
