UAE captain Rohan Mustafa wants batsmen to step up and seal series win

Denzil Pinto 21:27 18/07/2017
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  • Rohan Mustafa

    UAE captain Rohan Mustafa hopes to see an improvement from the top-order batsmen as they aim to clinch a series victory over the Netherlands on Wednesday.

    The UAE go into the game in Amstelveen on the back of Monday’s three-wicket triumph and can clinch the three-match series with another same result.

    In their first encounter, middle-order batsman Mohammed Usman was the star man with his unbeaten 57 ensuring Amjad Javed’s and Mustafa’s three-wicket hauls did not go to waste.

    Of the top-four batsmen, Mustafa scored the most with 34, while Mohammed Qasim (8), Ghulam Shabbir (23) and Shaiman Anwar (11) struggled at the crease.

    Mustafa accepts the wicket may have played a part in their batting performance but he hopes the top-order including himself can play big roles in today’s clash.

    “I will not blame them because the wicket was a bit tricky but we have to expect more from them,” he said. “We have to have a good start and I’m expecting a much better performance than that.

    “We have batsmen who can score big runs like Mohammed Usman, who can hit sixes and fours. So the plan would be to be there until the 30th over with just loss of two or three wickets because we have those kind of batsmen who can take the total even higher later in the
    innings.”

    He added: “But I can’t take nothing away from the guys on Monday. It was a good performance from the whole team and it was a good job from the bowlers in restricting them to 182.

    While the momentum will be with the UAE, Mustafa is fully aware that his team will be ready for whatever is thrown against them by the Dutch, who sit top of the World Cricket League Championship in this format.

    “They will come hard at us and we are expecting that,” he said. “It will be a good match and we are expecting a quick wicket because Monday’s game the wicket was a bit uneven.

    “We will be definitely concentrated come the game and Inshallah we can go out there and win the series with a match to spare.”

    For Dougie Brown, it was his first win as head coach, having won eight games as interim.

    The 47-year-old says there’s still areas of improvement. “Throughout the course of the day, we played some good cricket and there are some areas that we have to improve on in the second game,” said the ex-Warwickshire boss.

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