UAE fail to qualify for World Twenty20 Cup

Dubai: UAE have failed to qualify for the International Cricket Council (ICC) World Twenty20 tournament to be held in India next year.

In the ongoing World Twenty20 qualifiers, being hosted by Scotland and Ireland, UAE finished sixth in Group B after losing to four teams and with their last match against Oman being washed out. UAE’s lone victory came against Canada.

UAE thus finished with just three points ahead of Canada, who had none, and failed to move into the play-off round.

It was a very disappointing show by the UAE team, who had qualified for the last Twenty20 World Cup in Bangladesh and even to the 50-over World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. UAE’s neighbours Oman on the other hand produced a stupendous show, stunning even the strong Afghanistan team in the qualifier.

One of the reasons for UAE’s poor show has been their batting failure. None of their batsmen rose to the challenge of having to overcome the absence of their former skipper Khurram Khan, who retired recently.

UAE players were supposed to come under a central contract system soon but with the team not having qualified for the World Twenty20 event, there aren’t any top level tournaments for the team in the coming days. A post-mortem on the team’s poor show in the qualifiers as to whether it was lack of fitness, motivation or dearth of technique to win matches can be expected soon after the team’s return.