It was in 1996 when UAE first qualified for the World Cup. They are now returning back to the World Cup after almost twenty years. They missed the world cup berth marginally by finishing 3rd in the WCL Championship, just 1 point behind Afghanistan. Later they finished on top of the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier Super Sixes table to enter the final of that competition and hence making it to the world cup this time.
The performance of Zimbabwe against the Proteas and the victory of Ireland against West Indies have given belief to all the associates that a full member does have a vulnerable side. UAE will be no different and will not be short of belief but if they have the necessary skill or experience is what will be at display when they take on Zimbabwe in their opener.
UAE's recent form has not been impressive. They lost both the warm-up games, one against Australia and the other had been against Afghanistan. On the other hand Zimbabwe must be buoyed by their performance against South Africa. In that game Zimbabwe looked in control for most part of the match. It was the last 10 overs in each of the innings which took the match away from them. Even otherwise, Zimbabwe did very well in their warm-ups defeating Sri Lanka.
After his strong performance in the game against South Africa and against Sri Lanka in the warm up, Hamilton Masakadza will be the X-factor for Zimbabwe and they will hope that he carries his form in this game as well. Chamu Chibhabha made 64 and Brendan Taylor scored 40. One learning for Zimbabwe from their opening encounter would be to improve their bowling in the death overs. However the opposition would not be of the same quality this time. In all probability Zimbabwe may decide to retain the same side that did well against the Proteas.
A very little is know about UAE, but the oldest player in the World Cup at 43, Khurram Khan would be the X-factor for their team. He is the country's leading run scorer and wicket taker of all time in ODIs, and until last month was the captain as well. He is among runs as well with 86 in the warm-up against Afghanistan. The other player to look forward to would be Amjad Javed, swing bowler, whose warm up figures are 4 for 39 against Afghanistan and 1 for 42 against Australia. He is decent with bat as well and has scored three hundreds in first-class and List A cricket.
The two teams have never met in an ODI before, however they did play a T20 international last year which Zimbabwe won. Zimbabwe is expected to open its account tomorrow, however they will not make mistake of under-estimating UAE.
An interesting trivia - Chris Gaffaney of New Zealand and Johan Cloete of South Africa, on-field umpires for the day will be making their World Cup debuts.
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