All things went exactly according to the script as the tournament heavyweights, UAE and Qatar finished their group phase campaign in the ICC WorldT20 Asia “A” qualifiers in Kuwait in emphatic styles to cement their positions at the top of the points table and qualify for Asia regional finals, to be played in 2019.
The final qualification spot form the tournament will be decided between Saudi Arabia and host’s Kuwait in the 3rd/4th play-off while UAE and Qatar will play each other in the final for the trophy.
UAE’s strong batting line-up clicked together on the day against Kuwait in their final group game with Chirag Suri (86 off 52), Ashfaq Ahmed (36 off 20), Rohan Mustafa (31 off 27) and Muhammad Usman (26 off 10) contributing heavily in UAE’s final total of 201 from their 20 overs.
It was always going to be tall ask for Kuwait and they could only reach 115/8 in their 20 overs with Mohammad Naveed (3/20) and Mustafa (3/28) sharing the spoils with the ball with Imran Harder and Muhammad Usman picking up a wicket apiece.
Qatar survived some late bloopers in their batting as they chased Bahrain’s total of 112/8 by reaching there in the 17th over to win the match by 5 wickets. Qatar bowlers, Tamoor Sajjad (2/9) and Awais Malik (3/23) picked up regular wickets to restrict run-scoring for the Bahrain batsmen with good support from the rest of the bowlers.
In a bid to reach their target quickly, Qatar lost few wickets and at 81/5 in the 11th over, Bahrain were looking to sneak back in the game but a calm innings of 43 from 37 deliveries by Zaheer Ibrahim sealed the deal for Qatar, thus claiming the 2nd spot in the points table and qualify for regional finals.
Maldives once again bowled well to keep Saudi Arabia to 154/6 from their 20 overs but the inexperience in batting showed again as they fell short by 35 runs after managing to reach 119/9 in their 20 overs.
Nilantha Cooray of Maldives again showed good promise by picking up 2/21 with the ball and being the highest scorer in their innings, making 47 runs from 42 deliveries. Imran Arif (3/26) and Mohammad Afzal (3/28) were the pick of the bowlers for Saudi Arabia.
The 3rd/4th play-off and the final will be played on 27th Apr 2018.
