UAE and Netherlands continued their preparations towards ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Global Qualifers, as Netherlands played host’s in a 4-match T20I series. It was a signficant triumph for UAE, as they made a clean sweep of the series and also make some valuable ranking points in the process.
Netherlands, who were trying out their bench strength in the absence of regular players like Ryan ten Doeschate, Roelof van der Merwe, Tobias Visee, Paul van Meekeren, Tim van der Gugten and Colin Ackermann (all playing in GT20 Canada and England’s Vitality T20 Blast respectively), gave opportunities for the youngsters to stake claim to some of the positions in the final squads, that will be announced for the Global Qualifiers.
UAE, who haven’t had a string of successful outings in the recent past, needed a much required chain of victories to regain their confidence, ahead of the qualifiers at home. Much to the delight of head coach Dougie Brown and captain Mohammad Naveed, Ashfaq Ahmed starred with the bat in the series, going onto to make three half-centuries in the series, a rare line of consistency, which has been missing for quite sometime. Others in Rohan Mustafa, Muhammad Usman, Ghulam Shabber and Rameez Shahzad contributed in patches, but it was enough to put on the show. The bowling unit was spearheaded by Rohan Mustafa, Sultan Ahmed, Zahoor Khan and Ahmed Raza, who put in collective efforts during the course of the series.
Netherlands head coach Ryan Campbell, although disappointed with the end-result of the series, will still be very opstimistic about the overall dutch scenario, with youngsters like Maxwell O’Dowd (coming on the back of a good outing for VOC Rotterdam in 2019 European Cricket League), Saqib Zulfiqur, Sikander Zulfiqur and few others put in some impressive performances during the series. With the seasoned professionals due to be available for the qualifiers, Netherlands will be heavy favourites to book their place in the first round of ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in 2020 in Australia.
Brief Scores
01st T20I: UAE 181/5 in 20 overs (Ashfaq Ahmed 54, Muhammad Usman 52, Darius D’Silva 24 not out, Ghulam Shabbir 19, Vivian Kingma 2/47, Pieter Seelaar 1/20) beat Netherlands 168/4 in 20 overs (Maxwell O’Dowd 51, Scott Edwards 34, Ben Cooper 31, Rohan Mustafa 2/26, Zahoor Khan 1/26) by 13 runs
02nd T20I: Netherlands 136/9 in 20 overs (Ben Cooper 46, Pieter Seelaar 34, Sikander Zulfiqur 17, Rohan Mustafa 3/27, Zahoor Khan 2/20, Mohammad Naveed 1/21) lost to UAE 140/5 in 19.3 overs (Rameez Shahzad 49, Muhammad Usman 34, Ashfaq Ahmed 25, Philippe Boissevain 1/19, Sebastiaan Braat 1/11) by 5 wickets
03rd T20I: UAE 152/8 in 20 overs (Ashfaq Ahmed 56, Rameez Shahzad 22, Ghulam Shabbir 17, Sebastiaan Braat 3/26, Pieter Seelaar 2/21, Hidde Overdijk 2/23) beat Netherlands 138/9 in 20 overs (Maxwell O’Dowd 65, Sikander Zulfiqar 18, Rohan Mustafa 3/30, Qadeer Ahmed 2/18, Ahmed Raza 1/20) by 14 runs
04th T20I: Netherlands 150/6 in 20 overs (Antonius Staal 28 not out, Maxwell O’Dowd 28, Pieter Seelaar 25, Stephan Myburgh 25, Sultan Ahmed 2/29, Ashfaq Ahmed 1/20, Ahmed Raza 1/23) lost to UAE 153/3 in 19.4 overs (Ashfaq Ahmed 75, Ghulam Shabber 58 not out, Hidde Overdijk 1/11, Philippe Boissevain 1/29) by 7 wickets
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