UAE win Indoor Cricket World Cup warm-up
dubai — Hosts UAE won their first warm-up game of the Indoor Cricket World Cup against New Zealand on Monday at the Insportz Club in Dubai.
New Zealand’s Kieran Butler was named man-of-the-match for an excellent performance which saw him score 24 runs, take one wicket while giving away only three runs. For the UAE Vikrant Shetty was the topscorer with 20 runs. Shetty along with Ramvir Rai took a couple of wickets each as well.
UAE Open Men’s captain Saqib Nazir admits his side was unsure of how they would cope against the heavy weights in the tournament. “We have been telling the boys about the caliber of the teams we are competing against, and they were not sure of how we would fare against professional sides like New Zealand and Australia. For us it is totally different here, we work all day and then we come and play cricket in the evening.
“Frankly speaking, before the practice game we gave ourselves a 50-50 chance of winning. But after our victory against New Zealand in the first warm-up game, we know where we stand, and we think we can compete, and we want to compete.
“We have been training for a month now, we are not full time professionals, but with the world cup being hosted here in the UAE the Emirates Cricket Board has given us a huge opportunity and we want to do our best.”
On Tuesday New Zealand were the first to arrive at the Insportz Club Dubai for their training session, and all four squads were put through their paces.
New Zealand Open Men will take on hosts UAE on the opening day of the Indoor Cricket World Cup next Saturday and a lot of attention will be on the big-hitting Jesse Ryder, who has played 18 Tests, 48 ODIs and 22 T20Is for New Zealand. He last played International Cricket in January 2014.
Ryder who made five appearances in the recently concluded Caribbean Premier League says he is confident New Zealand will put up a good show in Dubai.
“I have been playing indoor cricket since I was 14, I started playing professionally so I took seven years off.”