New Delhi, February 12 After suffering heavy losses in their opening matches, Canada and the UAE will be eager to turn things around when they face each other in a Group D match of the T20 World Cup here on Friday.
Drawn into the "Group of Death" alongside three top-10 teams – New Zealand, South Africa, and Afghanistan – both the UAE and Canada face a daunting and unlikely task of reaching the Super Eight stage.
Their campaigns got off to disappointing starts, with both sides suffering major defeats.
While Canada, which dominated the Americas Regional Final by winning all six matches, lost its opener to South Africa by 57 runs, the UAE was handed a 10-wicket defeat by New Zealand.
Canada's lack of high-quality match exposure over the last four months was evident in its opening match. The team struggled against South Africa, taking some sharp catches but also dropping crucial chances and making several fielding errors.
However, there were also some positives.
They showed resilience in their chase of 214, rebuilding their innings after losing early wickets.
Left-arm wrist-spinner Ansh Patel impressed with his variations, removing key batters including Aiden Markram, while Navneet Dhaliwal's half-century and middle-order batter Harsh Thaker's performance were encouraging.
"There's a lot to take, there are a lot of positives to take...You know, Navneet's innings and the way we built the innings after losing four wickets. Even with the ball, I don't think we were that bad in the start; we could have executed better," Thaker had said after the match against South Africa.
The United Arab Emirates, meanwhile, continues to grow as a competitive associate team, having defeated some full member teams in recent years.
They will once again rely on their powerful captain Muhammad Waseem and Alishan Sharafu to get their World Cup campaign back on track.
With the ball, the UAE struggled against New Zealand. The responsibility will be on left-arm spinner Haider Ali to restrict the batters with his accuracy, while seasoned pacer Junaid Siddique could prove effective with his yorkers.
"I think we need to figure out how we need to bowl, which line and length. We need to bowl to the batsman. I think we will look for that in the next matches," Waseem said after the defeat against the Kiwis.
The UAE will also draw confidence from their T20 World Cup Qualifier match against Canada in 2019, when they defeated the North American side by 14 runs.
Teams (from):
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Canada: Dilpreet Bajwa (c), Ajayveer Hundal, Ansh Patel, Dilon Heyliger, Harsh Thaker, Jaskarandeep Singh, Kaleem Sana, Kanwarpal Tathgur, Navneet Dhaliwal, Nicholas Kirton, Ravinderpal Singh, Saad Bin Zafar, Shivam Sharma, Shreyas Movva, Yuvraj Samra.
UAE: Muhammad Waseem (c), Alishan Sharafu, Aryansh Sharma, Dhruv Parashar, Haider Ali, Harshit Kaushik, Junaid Siddique, Mayank Kumar, Muhammad Arfan, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Haider Shah, Rohid Khan, Sohaib Khan, Simranjeet Singh.
Match starts at 3 pm.
