DHAKA: Pakistan are set to intimidate minnows United Arab Emirates (UAE) with their four-pronged pace attack in a round robin league game of the Asia Cup Twenty20 cricket tournament here on Monday (today).
Coming jubilant from UAE following a successful holding of Pakistan Super League (PSL), the men in green were humiliated by arch-rivals India in their Asia Cup opener. They would like to forget that and register a big victory against minnows UAE.
“Pakistan were taken by surprise at the way the pitch played on Saturday,” all-rounder Shoaib Malik said after Pakistan were defeated by India.
Pakistan were bowled out for 83 against India with Sarfraz Ahmed’s 24-ball 25 the only innings of substance.
Mohammad Amir put in a fantastic spell at the top of India’s innings to keep Pakistan in the game, but their total was too little to defend.
“We made some mistakes. We didn’t know what the conditions here would be. Now we have played, now we know how to deal with it,” said Malik on the sidelines of the Pakistan team’s training session.
“We had miscalculated. It wasn’t a typical T20 wicket where you look at 170 or 180. We know we have the best attack among all teams. But the batsmen have to take responsibility. Whoever gets in has to score 60-70, so the team ends up scoring 140-150, which the bowlers can defend.
“We should have scored 130. We had two run outs. Otherwise one of them might have gone on to score 40-50. Here, 130-plus is a great score, unless the conditions change,” he said.
It’s unlikely that Pakistan will be worrying too much about its bowling. Mohammad Sami and Mohammad Irfan also bowled extremely well.
Pakistan coach Waqar Younis believes that whenever his team bats first, they are more confident even though their batting collapsed against India last night.
“I believe if we can put 135 to 140 on board, we can win against any opposition with the kind of fast bowling attack we have. So the plan in coming matches will be to put as many runs possible on the board,” Waqar said after the India match.
Since qualifying for this level in 2014, the UAE have played three Twenty20 Internationals against Test-playing nations, two of them in this tournament and one against Zimbabwe earlier. To their credit, UAE have gone about it manfully, bowling well and showing good spirit on the field.
Sri Lanka were restricted to 129 for 8 and Bangladesh to 133 for 8. But with the bat, UAE have fallen behind.
The manner in which UAE batsmen played Lasith Malinga and Mustafizur Rahaman, who have lot of variations but probably are not the fastest in the world, they will find it scary to face someone like Amir, who can let it rip from ball one. The pace and swing complemented by Sami and Wahab Riaz, who effortlessly cranks it up to 150 kmph, will make life difficult for UAE batsmen.
Teams (from)
Pakistan: Shahid Afridi (captain), Anwar Ali, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imad Wasim, Khurram Manzoor, Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Hafeez, Mohammad Irfan, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Sami, Sarfraz Ahmed (wk), Sharjeel Khan, Shoaib Malik, Umar Akmal, Wahab Riaz.
UAE: Amjad Javed (captain), Ahmed Raza, Fahad Tariq, Farhan Ahmed, Mohammad Naveed, Mohammad Shahzad, Muhammad Kaleem, Muhammad Usman, Swapnil Patil, Qadeer Ahmed, Rohan Mustafa, Saqlain Haider, Shaiman Anwar, Usman Mushtaq, Zaheer Maqsood. —Agencies
Asia Cup Twenty20
Pakistan vs UAE
06:30pm (PST)