UAE head coach Dougie Brown expects players to bounce back strongly against Nepal

Denzil Pinto 11:28 10/02/2018
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  • UAE head coach Dougie Brown says their loss to Canada provided them with a timely wake-up call ahead of their crucial match against Nepal on Sunday.

    The national team go into their World Cricket League Division Two match in Namibia on the back of Friday’s disappointing 23-run defeat to Canada despite looking on course for victory in their chase of 210. The UAE had thrashed Kenya by 218 run in their opening match on Thursday.

    With three more matches to play, another negative result will leave the UAE with an uphill task of claiming one of the top two spots and a place in next month’s World Cup Qualifier.

    And Brown insists if they want to book their flight to Zimbabwe, they cannot afford to put on another disappointing performance where only four batsmen reached double figures.

    “I hope the defeat is a wake-up call,” said Brown. “It’s disappointing because it’s a game (Canada) that we really should have won. At one point being 120 to win and to come short is really disappointing. But with the way the results have gone in the last two days, we are exactly in the same position as we were in the first game of the competition.

    “Now there are three games to go and it’s imperative that we put on strong performances for these matches. We can’t afford another blip like we had today.”

    Captain Rohan Mustafa, who took five wickets in the Canada loss, admitted the players only had themselves to blame and vowed to return to winning ways and Brown expects no different.

    “There are two ways that we can deal with this,” said the 48-year-old.

    “We can sulk and point the finger at this and for that reason and make excuses. Or, we can come back as men and a team who are hungry and want to put things right which we didn’t do today. Knowing this bunch of lads, I’m sure they will come back and prove to people that it’s a blip and we have the best of our games ahead of us. We can’t afford to have another day like we had today.”

    The former Warwickshire coach added: “Just for some reason we have managed to not deal with the pressure. We need to trust what we’re doing in training. We got most of the game right today but the thing that was important was from where we were in a match winning situation and just shows that if you can’t see the game to its conclusion, you won’t win matches.”

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