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Australia 119 for 3 (Short 68*, Hayat 2-26) beat UAE 117 for 6 (Shaiman 41, Coulter-Nile 2-20, Stanlake 2-20) by seven wickets
Abu Dhabi: Australia beat United Arab Emirates by seven-wicket in their one-off T20I in Abu Dhabi.
While for Australia it was an opportunity to fine-tune their limited-overs skills ahead of their three-match T20I series against Pakistan, for the home side it was a chance to make a mark against an international force.
Unfortunately for UAE, they couldn’t put their best foot forward. Australia restricted them to 117/6 in 20 overs after being asked to field, and then, D'Arcy Short's 53-ball 68* helped them finish off the chase in 16.1 overs.
UAE could never quite get going after suffering early blows. They were two down without getting a run on the board within the first two overs, with Ashfaq Ahmed and captain Rohan Mustafa being dismissed by Nathan Coulter-Nile and Billy Stanlake respectively.
When Chirag Suri, having steadily scored a 20-ball 13, became Stanlake’s second victim, UAE were reduced to 17/3.
For a while thereafter it was a matter of ensuring the slide didn’t turn into a full-blown implosion. Rameez Shahzad and Shaiman Anwar managed to do that, putting on a 53-run stand for the fourth wicket.
Shahzad was happy rotating strike and running between wickets, but Anwar was a lot more adventurous – his 44-ball 41 comprised three fours and two sixes, and had he hung around for a bit longer, UAE might have ended up with a bigger total.
As it turned out, both batsmen fell in quick succession – Shahzad (22 off 33) became Coulter-Nile’s second victim, and Anwar became Andrew Tye’s first.
At 82/5 in the 18th over, there was a real risk of the home side being restricted to below 100, but Mohammad Naveed came in at No.7 and hammered a 13-ball 27, including two fours and as many sixes.
