Perth: India exposed the UAE batsmen’s weakness of not having played top class bowling in international cricket as they coasted to an emphatic nine-wicket victory for their third win on the trot at the ICC World Cup on Saturday.
The reigning world champions bowled the UAE out for a paltry 102 on a bouncy Western Australia Cricket Association (WACA) wicket in 31.3 overs, with only two of the batsmen reaching double figures. A consistent Shaiman Anwar hit 35 runs while Khurram Khan was the second highest scorer with 14 runs.
India raced to victory in 18.5 overs with Rohit Sharma cracking an unbeaten 55 and Virat Kohli unconquered on 33. Together they put on an unbeaten 75 runs in 12.2 overs to ensure an emphatic nine-wicket victory with 187 balls to spare.
Off spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, who generated good bounce off the wickets, returned with figures of 4 for 25 backed by left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja and pacer Umesh Yadav with two wickets each.
It was not only the UAE’s lowest total in One Day Internationals but also the lowest total by any team against India. The only bright patch was Anwar’s form who once again top scored for UAE. He is the fourth highest run-getter so far in the World Cup after Chris Gayle, Shikhar Dhawan, AB De Villiers with 208 runs form three innings. He has even moved above Brendon McCullum who has 207 runs.
UAE skipper Mohammad Tauqir had to candidly admit that Ashwin was too tough to play. “Ashwin bowled brilliantly, we couldn’t cope with his bowling. He was getting good bounce and turn on this wicket. I think the top order needs to be more responsible and score more runs for us.”
Answering to a query from Gulf News on what are the lessons learnt on playing a mighty team like India, Tauqir said: “We need to do the basics right. I think the basics is to play all 50 overs. We got out in 30 odd overs, which was not good, and batters need to be more responsible and learn from their mistakes and play all 50 overs in the next game. We have proved it, also, in the previous two games. I think we need to do that more often.”
Mahendra Singh Dhoni who was delighted over his team notching up their third successive victory revealed that he did not want take the UAE match lightly. “I think when it comes to international cricket or any sport, you have to respect the opposition, irrespective of which team you are playing. That’s what was told to the team as a unit, that let’s not see who we are playing, let’s play the game of cricket. When the batsmen are batting, watch the ball and treat it the way it needs to be treated, because at the end of the day, every wicket that you take over here will be counted as a World Cup wicket and every run you score will be counted as a World Cup run. That was good enough motivation to come over here and repeat the kind of performances or the way we executed in the past few games. I think I was happy with the way the individuals turned up and the way we played cricket today
Though it was the UAE’s lowest score, Tauqir said that if only his teams play the bigger nations his team will be able to put up a good show. “The more we play against these bigger nations, the more we learn and the more we perform. Then the fear of thinking of playing a bigger team would not be there. I think the more we play, the better it will be for the associate nations.”
Tauqir was also very candid about why they cannot match India. “Indian team is more professional. They have a better spin attack than the rest of the teams, much better than the Irish or Zimbabweans. We got outplayed by the spin attack more than their fast bowlers. The (bouncy) wicket also helped them in getting us all out.”
