Umar Akmal and Shoaib Malik scored unbeaten fifties to win the game for Pakistan against UAE. UAE were always in the game having posted 130 runs target but Malik and Akmal absorbed pressure from UAE bowlers to get Pakistan home.
Pakistan defeated UAE in the Asia Cup game on Monday with 7 wickets in hand. UAE won the toss and elected to bat first where Muhammad Amir put in the second most economical spell in T20 history with giving away only 6 runs of 4 overs and two wickets. UAE lower order however put in a competitive total of 129 runs. Pakistan lost three early wickets but Shoaib Malik and Umar Akmal stead the ship taking Pakistan home with 8 balls to spare.
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Muhammad Amir seemed absolute unplayable as he put in one of the best bowling spells in T20 history. He took 2 wickets but conceded only 6 runs of his 4 overs to put the breaks on UAE inning early on.
Amjad Javed had Pakistan in trouble early on taking three top order wickets but Malik and Akmal got through UAE challenge and won the game for Pakistan
Pakistan will be taking on United Arab Emirates in the Asia Cup game on Monday night, 29th February at Share Bangla stadium in Mirpur. Its a must win game for Pakistan after losing against India while UAE will be playing for pride as there is no way they can make it to the finals having already lost two matches. They key point here of course both teams are terribly bad while batting but they do have some talented bowlers. Specially Pakistan who had Indian in spot of bother in the chase of just 83 runs.
The game will start at around 19:30 local time / 13:30 uk time with star sports broadcast the game live in India. PTV Sports will have live coverage in Pakistan while you can also watch Yupptv.com for official live streams if you are based in UK, USA, Canada, Australia and some European countries.
Shahid Afridi, Pakistan Captain, has been under massive pressure after Pakistan’s t20 form in last 1 and half is poor to say the least. Then need to win all there remaining three games to qualify for the finals which will be a tough tasks. Muhammad Amir’s return to form is a only silver lining in otherwise a very mediocre Pakistan team. Pakistan batting is a problem and its so bad at the moment that there is not a single batsman in the top order who can get into any other top T20 team including India, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand or even England.
Team News & Playing XIs: Pakistan are likely to drop Khurram Manzoor in the favour of left arm spinner Imad Wasim rest of the lineup should stay the same. While UAE is likely to stick with the same lineup which took the field against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Pakistan Probably playing XI: Hafeez, Sharjeel, S. Malik, U. Akmal, I.Wasim, Sarfraz Ahmad, Shahid Afridi, W. Riaz, M. Sami, M.Amir and M.Irfan
UAE has a superb bowling unit and if Pakistan falter they might sniff a chance here
Both these teams have never meet in the T20 match before but they do have three 50 over international between them. Pakistan should go into the game slightly more confident and a win plus a good batting performance will get them use to the conditions at mirpur where Bowlers are getting good help from the pitch.
Predictions: Pakistan’s bowling should be too good for UAE while batsman like Malik, Akmal and Hafeez should chip in good total for Pakistan. I am going with a easy for with Amir again troubling the batsman big time.