Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) have announced the 14-member squad, which will take part in the upcoming Asian Cricket Council Asia Cup qualifiers in Malaysia from Aug 29th – Sep 06th, 2018.
UAE will be competing against Malaysia, Hong Kong, Nepal, Oman and Singapore in a bid to secure the lone qualification spot from the qualifiers into the main draw of the ACC Asia Cup, which will be played in the UAE in September. The match against Nepal in the group phase of the qualifiers will be classified as an official ODI and should both reach the final, the match will again carry ODI status for both.
The winner of the qualifiers will be placed in Group A along with India and Pakistan and for UAE, it’ll be a big incentive to not only play at home but also get to play crucial ODI matches against Full members, which doesn’t come often for Associate members.
Notable inclusion in the squad is in the form of Abdul Shakoor, who last represented UAE in 2015 and has made a comeback following strong showing in the domestic T20 tournament organised by ECB a few months back and other domestic competitions. U19 players Rahul Bhatia and Fahad Nawaz, who played in the last held ACC U19 Asia Cup, are also selected in the senior squad for the qualifiers.
UAE national squad last International assignment was in Kuwait, where they took part in the ICC World T20 Asia “A” qualifiers, from which they qualified along with Kuwait and Qatar into the Asia regional finals in 2019. More on the U19 players and ECB squad selection comments from chief selector, click here.
UAE Squad for Asia Cup Qualifiers:
Rohan Mustafa (Captain), Ashfaq Ahmed, Chirag Suri, Rameez Shahzad, Muhammad Usman, Adnan Mufti, Shaiman Anwar, Ahmed Raza, Imran Haider, Muhammad Naveed, Amir Hayat, Abdul Shakhoor, Rahul Bhatia, Fahad Nawaz & Zahoor Khan
