Promises to raise their game against Papua New Guinea
Image Credit: Virendra Saklani/Gulf News
Skipper Rohan Mustafa says judging the UAE team on the basis of the performance in the WCL is not fair.
Abu Dhabi: Is the UAE slowly losing the edge they had gained among the associate nations when they had qualified for the World Cup in 2015 and the 2016 World T20?
Their performance in the ICC World Cricket League Championship standings, where they are languishing second-last ahead of Namibia, raises a few uncomfortable questions.
From the time coach Aaqib Javed left, after steering the team to resurgence, the UAE has already tried three coaches on temporary basis — Paul Franks, Owais Shah and now Dougie Brown. The captain’s duties have also changed hands between Ahmad Raza, Amjad Javed and Rohan Mustafa.
The UAE won the first match against Papua New Guinea (PNG) by 82 runs but on Sunday they received a huge setback. They lost wickets in a heap, five for 13 runs, from a position of strength ended up losing by 26 runs.
New skipper Mustafa, however, brushed aside that these are worrying signs and has asked not to judge the UAE team on the basis of the performance in the World Cricket League (WCL).
“We are all disappointed with the loss. We had the match in our control of 80 odd overs then in 10 overs or so we lost our way. We have talked about it and you will see the difference in the One-dayer on Tuesday against PNG,” said Mustafa, adding that the performance in the WCL has been poor because UAE have tried a lot of players in the early stages of the tournament.
“There were a lot of changes in the squad as a part of restructuring. Now, we have contractual players and the team is almost settled. But at the beginning of this tournament we experimented a lot and hence the result has been alarming. We have four more matches against Nepal and Namibia and I’m confident we will do well,” revealed Mustafa, who however agreed that the need of the hour was to have a coach on a long-term basis.
“Three matches is not good enough to judge Brown (the current incumbent) or me. Our fitness levels have improved, our approach to the game and there is tremendous improvement in batting and bowling department,” revealed Mustafa.
0 comments: