From The Pavilion

PROMOTION BABY!!! What a win!

What a tour. It’s all coming together.

Yep, pleased with that one! Only loss by 1 wicket on the last ball, with a missed runout before that, but we did ride our luck before that, as you need in T20 even more than OD.
Big one is the next tour, we reckon 4 wins gives us a decent shot at making the WC

The bats looked a little shaky earlier in the week, but the bowlers were brilliant. It was the opposite way around for the last two games.

Murat, Shareef, and Razzaq were very good for us. We took a bit of luck as well, but I'm very pleased with our performance this week.

“WIN=PROMOTE
TODAY IS OUR DAY
WE HAVE DONE THE WORK
ITS TIME TO COLLECT OUR PRIZE”
Notes written in the UAE change room whiteboard (circa 2021)

They say sport is largely mental.
Or maybe they say sports people are mental.
Either way, the lads were visualising, manifesting and had full self belief they could win this game and ultimately promotion.

Let’s play it back.

Skipper Ya’qub Shareef wins the toss and bowls. The weather is disgusting, that kind of humidity where you have a shower and you’re sweating by the time you’ve turned the cold water off. It feels like everything is sweating, that’s how much moisture there is in the air. Somehow, the groundsmen have kept all that moisture away from the pitch. The pitch is drier than some of my humour. It’s a spinners pitch, but they’re going to struggle to grip the ball in this humidity.

Zimbabwean Innings

0.1 Is that a feather? IT IS! Dhul gets the batsmen to feather one through to the keeper Yardeen Shareef and Zimbabwe are one for none!

1.3 Another batsmen nicks off. This time off Kareems bowling and Yardeen takes a sitter. Zimbabwe 2/11

4.4 Another caught behind! This time a good piece off keeping from Yardeen who’s up to the stumps for the spin bowling of Ibraheem! Zimbabwe 3-21

12.5 the crowd respectfully claps the 50 partnership which has come from 49 balls.

16.4 Nqxetbwane [dropped] on 38 runs and to make things worse the ball trickles over for a 4

18.4 Nqxetbwane gets his 50! It’s come from 46 balls

18.6 Nqxetbwane [dropped] again

19.1 50 runs for Sheldrick off of 49 balls and the 100 partnership off of 87 balls.

Kareem went for 21 runs in the final over. Ruining his statistics for the day and leaving us a target of 142.

0.4 Hussein six!

4.1/4.2 Yardeen smokes back to back fours!

7.3 The crowd respectfully applauds the 50 partnership which has come from 48 balls.

9.2 Hussein is out for 30. Unfortunately that’s plumb.

11.1 The brickie Murat is out for just 4 runs!

End of over 15 (11 runs) - UAE U20(100-2). 42 runs required from 5 overs. RR 6.67 RRR 8.40
Y. Shareef 48 (41b), H. Sa'eed 14 (13b), A. Schoof (rf) 3-0-24-0

15.3 Yardeen hits it straight to a fielder and he has to go for 49.

16.3 Sa’eed gets done by a peach and has to depart for 22.

17.4 Razzaq : [dropped]

17.6 K Shareef clean bowled for 3.

Two overs remain. 12 balls. 18 runs required. Razzaq has just been given a life and he’s on strike (currently on 11 runs).

18.1 a misfield trickles to the boundary for 4.
18.2 SIX!
18.3 The batsmen run 2.
3 singles end the over. 15 runs from it. 3 runs required!

19.1 Razzaq hits a nice shot and they get 2. Scores level!
19.2 They steal a single and the lads go off!!!! What a win!

Tour Match # 5
VS
Result: Winner Winner Chicken Dinner
win by 5 wickets

The Match in a tweet: Hi Ho Hi Ho it’s off to Div. 2 we go!!!

Man of the Match: Darin Sheldrick
Worth noting that not a single one of the three best on ground were from the UAE side which won the game.

Our best:
Malik Razzaq - the saviour at the end with a 14 ball 28. Also bowled well without luck 0-22 off his 4.

Yardeen Shareef - the skippers 49 really set up the chase!

Let’s talk about the Shareef family, three Shareefs in the team and the noble family would be very proud of these lads! The scorecard really doesn’t make it easy to tell who is who.

Around the Grounds:
Bangladesh beat Bermuda comfortably by 5 wickets.
Kenya beat Pakistan by 1 run in a thriller!

Another tour down! We get a week break now but make sure you tune in on May 3rd for a Senior Div 3 tour. Matches are in Pakistan so 0500 kick offs.

Trust in the process

Enjoyed that one

Nice Moose

I'm glad we gave you something positive to talk about!

Winner winner chicken dinner!

Damn today’s game went to the wire.

I’ll post both write ups a little later

Tour Match # 1
VS Bermuda
Result:
UAE win by 8 runs

The Match in a tweet: Leaving Farmer stranded. A. Farmer run out. This feels like the punch line of a bad agricultural joke but really that’s a commentary line. A Farmer run out on 5 needing 14 runs in the last over. Bermuda crumble and UAE snag a vital win. Is this already longer than a tweet can be? Yeah I think it is.

Man of the Match:
Malik Razzaq he’s also on the market if you have a cool $500k sitting about.

Our best:
Malik Razzaq - 58 (72) 3-47 1ro

Yousif Nu'man - 1* (2) 2-34

Khayri Saleem - 49* (59)

Yarden Shareef - 39 (67) 1c 1st

Qasim Kareem - 2-44 1c

Bermuda won the toss and sent us into bat. Some handy starts and solid partnerships sore us set a decent total of just under 230. Although nervey the bowlers held on and some great bowling at the death and a nice agricultural runout saw the lads hold on for a win!

I hope you also tuned into today’s match as we took on India in what was a nail biter.

Tour Match # 2
VS India
Result:
India win by 1 wicket

The Match in a tweet: [insert mildy funny comment here later] India won by 1 wicket.

Man of the Match:
Wazir Najjar

Our best:
Wazir Najjar - 34 (27) 3-20

Samir Omar - 4-47

Ubayd Sabur - 62* (76) 1-58 1c

Abbud Dhul - 1-32 1c

206 probably felt a few runs not enough and that was the case as India hobbled over the line. 1/2

India sit top of the tree with their 2 wins.
4 teams sit with one win.
Winless Zimbabwe sit alone at the bottom.

Tune in at 0430 tomorrow as we take on Pakistan.

Trust in the process

Trust in the process

Not sure if anyone still reads these at this point but another win! Let’s go!

2/3 wins means we sit equal second with Kenya on two wins each. Indias lossless streak means they’re top of the tree. Sadly Zimbabwe are yet to pick up a win and sit bottom.

A win tomorrow against Zimbabwe puts us in good standing to promote - it may mean a do or death fixture against Kenya on Friday.

Tour Match # 3
VS Pakistan
Result:
win by 91 runs

The Match in a tweet: win the toss, bat first, bat big, win the game. Simples

Man of the Match: Yousif Nu'man

Our best: Yousif Nu'man - 5-38
My new mans also on sale if you’ve got a spare $400k - I’m not getting a commission I promise.

5/38 for the spinner even though he did struggle to grip the ball in the humid conditions. Only needed 8.3 overs to take his five fa and win the game. The slower ball working not once but twice.

Riyad Ibrahim - 42* (25) 1c
A quick paced 42 at the death including 4 boundaries.

Malik Razzaq - 32 (30) 1-18
You guessed it the Razzle Dazzle is also on $ale. $500k

Malik Sami - 57 (97)
Slow and steady from the opener allowing a fantastic platform for the middle order to explode late in the innings.

Rafiq Sharif - 20* (13) 2c 1st
Handy runs and sharp with the gloves.

Tune in at 0430 tomorrow as we take on Kenya.

Trust in the process

Always read em

Good stuff so far! Good to see

Still reading moose!
Nice win today even with 5 more drops! We need a lot of things to go our way for WC qualification but all we can do is win our last 2 games now

Always a good read, Moose

Pretty fun read always Moose:)

Congratulations to UAE U20's for a decent tour thus far, and I do not believe that you are not getting compensation for these free adverts.