Against India, UAE hoping against hope

 “My boys are amateurs and semi-professionals,” says Aaqib Javed, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) coach. “I’d need to fire them up, to motivate them… After that, it’s up to them, to try to play to their potential.”

Upsets are the spice of a tournament’s life. Underdogs and the weaklings winning games shakes up a tournament, stirs emotion the way one-sided contests never can. Everyone wants to see the underdog win.

Can the UAE pull the rug from under India’s feet tomorrow? Will they? The answers to these questions are yes and no. UAE vs India is akin to Roger Federer playing the Indian national tennis champion — a carnage is the likeliest result of such a contest. Their squad has men from India, Pakistan and the UAE. Two of them are over 40 years of age. The average age is nearly 32. They are likely to be blown away tomorrow.

Yet, it would be prudent to mention here that the UAE is not such a hopeless bunch. They’ve made 285/7 and 278/9 in their first two matches, against Zimbabwe and Ireland. They lost both the games, by four and two wickets, respectively. But they were not disgraced — they lost to Zimbabwe in 48 overs, and to Ireland in 49.2 overs. They’ve shown they’ve got the will to fight.

Yet, it’s difficult to imagine UAE beating India tomorrow. The wicket is going to be quick — remember, last month Steve Finn of England crushed the Indian batting here, bowling them out for 153. How would the UAE batsmen cope with the Indian bowling?

Shami missing

Even without Mohammed Shami, the Indian bowling is a cut above the UAE batsmen. A knee trouble will keep Shami out of tomorrow’s game. He bowled 17 overs in the first two games, picked up 6/65 in them. His exit from the scene would raise the spirits of the UAE batsmen. But India’s pace attack has been versatile and not dependent on Shami alone. Mohit Sharma has been surprisingly strong and disciplined, and Umesh Yadav has been good in patches; the spinners, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, have been very good, too. Shami is likely to be replaced by Stuart Binny or Bhuvneshwar Kumar. The former may make the XI because he’s more likely to play instead of a spinner in India’s matches in New Zealand — it would be prudent to test him in this game.

India’s domination of UAE has been absolute in the past — but they’ve met only two times in ODIs, in 1994 and 2004. India won the games by 71 and 116 runs, respectively.

It would require a hugely sloppy show by the Indians to enable UAE to beat them tomorrow; it must be accompanied by a fantastic performance by UAE. The possibility of this happening exists, but it’s very slim. UAE’s hopes hang by a very slim thread.

Coach Javed was interviewed by the Indian journalists en mass; after that, he was cornered by one Indian journalist after another. Most of the questions related to India — Tendulkar vs Kohli, India’s fast bowling, India’s fielding, Dhoni’s captaincy, etc. Javed’s answers were honest and complimentary to India. They also showed a great deal of respect for India — maybe a bit more than an opposing team’s coach must show.

That, however, reflects the current balance of power between the two teams. To change it, UAE must raise hell tomorrow. Expectations of that happening, though, are minimal, even non-existent.