Dubai: UAE batting coach Mudassar Nazar feels the team’s International Cricket Council (ICC) Intercontinental Cup match against Ireland this week will be good preparation ahead of next month’s 2015 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier in the same country.
UAE take on hosts Ireland in a four-day match at Malahide near Dublin from Tuesday before joining 13 other teams bidding for a place in next year’s Twenty20 World Cup from July 6 to 26.
Nazar, who prepared the UAE batsmen at the ICC Cricket Academy in Dubai before the team’s departure, believes switching from four-day cricket to Twenty20 won’t be a problem for the UAE.
He told Gulf News: “It is always better to play the longer version first and then play a short version like Twenty20 than the other way round. In the longer version, you spend time at the batting crease and then, when you go into the shorter version, you change gear easily.
“This is because by playing in a four-day match you would have got some batting behind you. In Twenty20, even if you have scored a 50 you would not have really spent enough time at the crease. Longer version matches actually prepare you well for the Twenty20 World Cup.”
But Nazar does fear for the UAE’s prospects in the Intercontinental Cup match as they will play in alien conditions with only minimal preparation.
“The worrying factor is that we are playing in a longer version tournament [the Intercontinental Cup] without having played any four-day matches,” he said.
“We did well in the 2015 World Cup in Australia as our preparation was fantastic. We played lot of One Day Internationals against top opposition like Pakistan A and Afghanistan and also toured Australia before the World Cup to play against strong Australian teams.
“All those matches helped the boys to do well in the World Cup. Now we are playing in the four-day, longer version of the game without any four-day match exposure, though the Hampshire three-day match against Scotland [which the UAE lost last week] can help the players acclimatise to playing longer innings.”
Former Pakistan star Nazar, who used to play in English county cricket, feels the conditions in Ireland will give his players a testing time.
“The conditions in Ireland could be tougher than in England because the quality of the pitches in Ireland are not as good as in English county cricket. The ball will seam around, though the start of June, July and August are the best possible months to play cricket there, as the weather gets warmer and pitches become a lot firmer.
“The ball will always move around in countries like England and batsmen will have to handle it, though the pitch won’t tilt in the bowlers’ favour totally like it does in April and the whole of May.
“For Ireland, the bowling was their weakest link during the World Cup as two of their premier bowlers were injured. They will now be back and so they will be a tough opposition now.”