Malek to lead UAE against Singapore in U-15 tournament

Sharjah: Ahmad Malek will lead UAE under 15 cricket team in the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) Under 15 tournament to be held in Nepal from November 23.

UAE will take on Singapore in the opening match of the tournament. D. Abhijeet Shankar is the vice captain.

"The team has been selected out of the 75 players who came for selection. We first selected 35 probables and the final 14 has been selected out of it," remarked Mazhar Khan, the administrator of the Emirates Cricket Board.

Malek is a right arm medium pacer and three drop batsman who had excelled in the Rosy Blue inter school cricket tournament.

"We have a few good left arm spinners like Shoaib Nasir, who topped the bowling in the inter school event. Vice captain Shankar is also a good spinner," added Khan.

UAE is in group B along with Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Singapore.

Mohammad Lokhandwala, a prolific scorer in domestic cricket and convenor of the Dubai inter school tournament, will be the manager of the team.

Shah Hussain has been appointed as the assistant coach.

Strong teams

UAE's second match will be against Kuwait on November 27 and on the next day take on Saudi Arabia. The last match for UAE will be against Afghanistan, which has been fielding strong junior teams with players practicing in Pakistan.

In fact, Afghanistan is the joint winners of the ACC Under 19 tournament with Oman.

The semifinals will commence from December 1 and the final will be held on December 4.

UAE team: Aqib Malek (capt), D. Abhijeet Shanker (v capt), Don Joel Mark, Jeremy Joseph, Mohammad Yousuf, Pratik K. Shetty, Rohit Singh Jamwal, Saurabh Kantgir, Shaaz Ahmad, Shomeresh Shetty, Siddarth Sekhar, Waleed Ahmad, Zubin Sharukh Ghyara, Shoaib Nasir.

Stand byes: Adil Khalil, Ranjit Shankar Whagmore, Nagarjun Anup Hedge, Bhargav Venkatakrishnan.

Mohammad Lokhandwala (manager) Shah Hussain (coach assistant).