NEW DELHI: After suffering heavy defeats in their opening matches, associate rivals Canada and the United Arab Emirates will be keen to bounce back when they face each other in a Group D clash of the T20 World Cup here on Friday.
Placed in a tough “Group of Death” alongside three top-10 teams — New Zealand, South Africa and Afghanistan — both Canada and the UAE face an uphill task in their bid to reach the Super Eight stage.
Their campaigns began on a disappointing note, with both teams enduring one-sided losses. Canada, which had dominated the Americas Regional Final by winning all six matches, went down to South Africa by 57 runs in their opener, while the UAE were handed a 10-wicket thrashing by New Zealand.
Canada’s lack of high-quality match exposure over the past four months was evident against South Africa. The side was erratic in the field, producing a few sharp catches but also missing regulation chances and committing several misfields.
There were, however, positives to take from the defeat. Canada showed resilience in their chase of 214, rebuilding the innings after losing early wickets. Left-arm wrist-spinner Ansh Patel impressed with his variations, dismissing key batters including Aiden Markram, while Navneet Dhaliwal’s half-century and the form shown by middle-order batter Harsh Thaker offered encouragement.
"There's a lot to take, there's a lot of positives to take. You know Navneet's innings and the way that we built an innings after losing four wickets. Even with the ball I don't think we were that bad in the start we could have executed better," Thaker said after the game against South Africa.
The United Arab Emirates, meanwhile, continue to establish themselves as a competitive associate side, having troubled several full-member teams in recent years. They will once again rely on their big-hitting captain Muhammad Waseem and Alishan Sharafu to revive their World Cup campaign.
With the ball, however, the UAE looked off colour against New Zealand. The responsibility will be on left-arm spinner Haider Ali to contain the batters with his accuracy, while experienced pacer Junaid Siddique could be effective with his yorkers.
"I think we have to work out how we have to bowl, which line, which length. We have to bowl to the batsman. I think we will look for that in next games," Waseem said after the loss against the Kiwis.
The UAE will also draw confidence from their T20 World Cup Qualifier meeting against Canada in 2019, when they defeated the North American side by 14 runs.
Teams (from):
Canada: Dilpreet Bajwa (c), Ajayveer Hundal, Ansh Patel, Dilon Heyliger, Harsh Thaker, Jaskarandeep Singh, Kaleem Sana, Kanwarpal Tathgur, Navneet Dhaliwal, Nicholas Kirton, Ravinderpal Singh, Saad Bin Zafar, Shivam Sharma, Shreyas Movva, Yuvraj Samra.
UAE: Muhammad Waseem (c), Alishan Sharafu, Aryansh Sharma, Dhruv Parashar, Haider Ali, Harshit Kaushik, Junaid Siddique, Mayank Kumar, Muhammad Arfan, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Haider Shah, Rohid Khan, Sohaib Khan, Simranjeet Singh.
The match starts at 3 pm.