The UAE were left ruing the unavailability of bowlers due to injury as they lost to Pakistan A in the third one-dayer of the five-match series in Dubai yesterday.
The Pakistanis batted first and scored 271 for eight, with solid contributions from captain Sohaib Maqsood (79) and one down batsman Adil Amin (47). In reply, the UAE could only manage 217 for nine with captain Khurram Khan scoring 53 and Krishna Karate hitting a sedate 52 as they lost by 54 runs to trail the series 2-1.
The UAE were, however, hamstrung by injuries to medium pacers Mohammad Shahzad and Kamran Shahzad and were forced to resort to part time bowlers.
“Things didn’t work out for us today. Kamran got injured while bowling and Mohammad Shahzad picked up a groin strain. We were short of bowlers and had to rely on part timers and the Pakistan team took full advantage of it,” UAE coach Aaqib Javed said.
“They should have only got to 240 odd but got 30 extra runs. When you are chasing 270, the entire mindset is different. But we gave a reasonable fight, scoring around 220.”
Earlier in the day, Pakistan A started off well with openers Nasir Jamshed (45) and Sami Aslam (14) adding 46 for the first wicket. Decent contributions from Amin, Maqsood, Babar Azam (22) and Anwar Ali (29) took the team total to a healthy 271.
For the UAE, Karate bowled 9.2 overs and though he picked up three wickets, gave away 73 runs. Mohammad Naved ended with decent figures of 2-45.
In reply, the UAE innings never got going as they lost wickets at regular intervals. Apart from Khurram and Karate, Naved was the other big contributor scoring 43.
