USA have been mighty impressive on their tour of UAE so far. Their 1st T20I against the host’s was thwarted by rain when they were nicely placed in the match, needing 8 more UAE wickets, who had lost 2 quick ones in a chase of 10+ runs per over in a reduced 15-overs contest.
And in the 2nd T20I, USA came close to within touching distance of UAE’s impressive total of 180+ on board, falling short by little over 20-odd runs in the process. For a team, who have been hitting their straps pretty well in the part 5-6 months, these are notable outings against one of the top tier Associate member nations on their home turf.
USA, who are preparing for the all-important ICC WCL Division 2 in Apr 2019 in Namibia, are scheduled to play seven 50-overs matches (three each against UAE and UAE XI and a solitary game against English county Lancashire) during their tour. And they have started the 50-overs campaign on an emphatic fashion, defeating UAE in the first of the OD matches by 5 wickets.
Steven Taylor’s 4-wicket haul coupled with 2 wickets each for Saurabh Netravalkar & Roy Silva restricted UAE to 209 and then chased the target riding on half-centuries by Xavier Marshall and Aaron Jones to reach 210/5 in the 48th over to register a commendable victory over an ODI status member.
Brief Scores:
UAE 209 all out in 48.1 overs (Rameez Shahzad 53, Rohan Mustafa 47, Ghulam Shabbir 34, Steven Taylor 4/38, Saurabh Netravalkar 2/31, Roy Silva 2/15) lost to USA 210/5 in 47.3 overs (Aaron Jones 81 n.o, Xavier Marshall 58, Jaskaran Malhotra 31, Rohan Mustafa 1/30, Imran Haider 1/37) by 5 wickets
