By winning against Zimbabwe, Pakistan had kept their hopes alive in the campaign. Now with this win against UAE, they have revived their campaign. After its defeat against Pakistan, Zimbabwe is clearly out of the race of quarterfinals. If something does not go terribly wrong, for both India and South Africa, they will continue to be in the top 2 with India retaining the top spot. In Ireland's defeat against South Africa, its NRR has taken a plunge. That is why, Pakistan had to win this match against UAE comprehensively. And that is what they did. As a result, their NRR has got the boost and they have overtaken Ireland in the pool table. But they have played one game more than Ireland. Unless West Indies wins against India, till the last day of the league stage i.e. March 15, we will not know which two teams from West Indies, Ireland and Pakistan will go into the knockouts. But the margin of win here has ensured that Pakistan is still in the race.
UAE won the toss and elected to field first. May be they would have been influenced by what happened against India. They did not want themselves to be in a situation where they would not be sure of what they can post on the board to avoid an embarrassing defeat or getting all out as they did against India.
All the Pakistani batsmen used this match as an opportunity to be among runs. Obviously the attack was not the same as they would get when they face a better opposition, but spending time in the middle of the pitch does give one some confidence. It is confidence that the batting line up lacked. It was evident in their game against Zimbabwe. Nasir Jamshed failed once again. It would be difficult for Pakistan to give him any more chance considering that they have only two more games left before the knock-outs. For that matter, even Ahmed Shezad was dropped very early in the innings. Their top order is definitely fragile. As I said in my preview, the only aspect of the Pakistani cricket that looks in order is their bowling.
For UAE, once again Naveed and Tauqir did the best in bowling. When all others were going easily above economy of 6.0, they finished with less than that and also were the only two to complete their quota. Javed had been good for UAE but in today's match, he could not bring out his best. Pakistan would have found the bowlers to be too slow. Even though the opposition was moderate, both the batsmen, Haris Sohail and Ahmed Shehzad were trying get in form and hence they did not go after the bowling. They just ensured that they did not fall below RR 4.0 and occasionally they were getting some 10+ overs. It was only after 30 overs that they touched RR 5.0. It was very sensible for them to do that, considering that it would have been very tempting for them to go bang bang, but they decided to go slow and steady and lay a proper foundation for the stroke makers to come and express themselves. That is what they did and Pakistan ended up with a formidable total. This is what Pakistan has to do consistently if they have to go forward in the tournament, irrespective of who the opponent is.
UAE bowlers cannot be blamed for the runs that they have conceded. They lack experience and experience would come only playing more games, which they do not do. But they have to come out with a plan for bowling in deaths. Their approach is one dimensional and they are conceding too many runs and too easily.
It was a mammoth total for them to chase. The openers should have applied themselves more and stayed there but that did not happen. For UAE it was again their most reliable batsmen Khurram Khan and Shaiman Anwar who came to their rescue and gave some respectability to their total. Khurram has scored so far 45, 36, 14 and 43. He is the most experienced player in the team and has provided solidity to the middle order, but he has to convert those good starts into big score for UAE to make an impact. Shaiman, another batsman who has scored three 50+ scores in the four matches and he has been the top scorer in all the innings. If he was not there, UAE would not have been able to score whatever they have so far in this tournament. In fact he is now the top scorer in this tournament with 270 runs. One more player, who has made an impact with the bat but no one talks about him is Amjad Javed. He has scored 25, 42, 2 and 40 in his four innings coming at number 8 at a strike rate nearly 120. His innings had always given the late impetus to the UAE innings.
But from UAE point of view, a loss by 129 runs is not a bad one considering, there are teams who have lost with bigger margins than that in this world cup. One more aspect of their game that they have to improve on is fielding. More than improving, they have to take it very seriously. Had they taken the catches that came their way, they could have put Pakistan on the back-foot. Ground fielding also concede too many extra runs. All these contribute to the final score.
These kind of matches have been occasions for the lower rung teams to have the much needed contest against the regular nations and for the full members, in the context of the tournament, an opportunity to improve their NRR. Arguments will start again about the one sided nature of such games, but then when we talk about these matches, we cannot ignore to include the Australia-England match or New Zealand - Sri Lanka match or India - South Africa match.
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