Dubai: Wicketkeeper-batswoman Dipanki Borcar of Heriot Watt University will lead UAE in the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) Under-19 Championship to be held in Singapore from October 4 to 12.
The Emirates Cricket Board has appointed Pakistan's women cricketer Shamsa Hashemi as coach with Mohammad Hyder as assistant coach.
"The team is very balanced with a good mix of allrounders and good batswomen. We have been training hard at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium for over three months for this tournament after selecting over 30 girls and have now picked the final 14 for the tournament," Hyder told Gulf News.
"The strength of our team is our bowling attack and since almost everyone can bat we will be able to produce a good show in Singapore. We have three good spinners in off spinner Humaira Tasneem and Shambhavi Gupta and left-arm spinner Spoorthy Prakash."
Hyder said there are three good medium pacers who are, Samiya Salim, Petule Shalom Nadar and Monique Gilda D'Souza.
"The average age of the team is around 16 with captain Borcar as the oldest at 18. The youngest is Aysha Naushad Khan, who is only 11 years old. We have picked a young team with an eye for the future," he said.
"The team will leave for Singapore on September 29 to play a couple of matches and get acclimatised for the event. UAE is in group B along with Malaysia, Thailand, Bhutan, Oman and China.
In Group A are Nepal, Hong Kong, Qatar, Singapore and Kuwait. UAE will open their campaign with a match against Bhutan on October 4," said Mazhar Khan, the administrator of the Emirates Cricket Board.
Team
Dipanki Borcar (captain), Monique Gilda D'Souza, Petule Shalom Nadar, Humaira Tasneem, Areej Karim Siddiqui, Shambhavi Gupta, Samiya Salim, Spoorthy Prakash, Sneha Sankar, Nashra Karim Siddiqui, Aashna, Reem Shakeel Nadeem, Thirumalai Anantham Pilllai Malitha, Aysha Naushad Khan.
Manager: Mansour Pasha.
Coach: Shamsa Hashmi.
Asst coach: Mohammad Hyder.