The hosts welcome the southwestern Pacific outfit to Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Zayed Stadium in the first of two 50-over matches with the latter scheduled on Sunday morning.
The tourists sit second in the eight-team table and know victory in both games will see them go joint-top with Netherlands on 10 points. On paper, they appear the stronger side considering the UAE remain rooted to the bottom with one win in eight matches.
And it’s for that reason why batsman Mustafa feels PNG will be slight favourites, although he has backed his team to get their second victory of the campaign.
“If you look at the standings, they are second and we are bottom,” said the 28-year-old, who replaced Amjad Javed as skipper at the end of the Desert T20 in February.
“They will definitely be looking for the two wins to top the group and for sure they will try their best and make things difficult for us.
“We know the challenge that we’re facing and we are ready for them. Although we are playing at home, there will be a lot of pressure on them to win because they are second in the standings.”
Despite their miserable record in the competition so far, the UAE go into the game having tested themselves against English county sides after suffering an ODI series loss to Ireland earlier this month.
During a practice match against England South team, veteran batsman Shaiman Anwar and Mustafa scored centuries and the skipper believes that will give them good confidence going into the game.
“We have been working very hard and getting as much match practice as possible in preparation for PNG,” said Mustafa.
“There were some centuries scored while bowlers also did very well.
“The last time we played in this competition, we lost to Holland and there were a lot of new guys in the team. We have now gelled tog-ether and know each other on how to play and I think we can cause a lot of problems as we have a lot of batsmen who can change the game in five or six overs. But it’s importantly that we regularly score runs.”
Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) member, Zayed Abbas, added: “The 50-over game is very important for us and it’s part of the ICC rankings,” he said. “These are very crucial for the UAE.”
