| Saeed Al Saffar - hopes of qualifying for the World Cup © Gulf News |
UAE now take on United States of America in the super league match today.
Facing the prospect of being eliminated from the competition, the UAE team, after defeats to Holland, Scotland and Canada, fought back to beat Fiji and enter the play off stage on Friday.
On Saturday night, UAE shocked the fancied Uganda team by five wickets in the play off, to enter the super league.
"It was a real good performance. I always believed that my team had the ability to win and we should have won all our matches here. Unfortunately our team did not click at the right time," he added.
Elaborating on the creditable victory over Uganda, Al Saffar said: "Uganda could never recover from their early loss of wickets. It was a cloudy and windy day and rain interrupted our match. Once we picked their early wickets, we kept them totally on the back foot."
Uganda were 61 for 6 at one stage and had recovered through their skipper John Lubia's unbeaten knock of 76. "We should have got him early. But in a low scoring match, someone is bound to score and he really batted well. All credit to him. My aim was to have them below the 150-run mark and we managed it," said Saffar.
On whether he was anxious when rain stopped play after the 44th over when UAE was on top, Al Saffar said: "After having Uganda reeling under pressure, I did not want the match to be continued the next day. I wanted to have the result the same day and fortunately it stopped raining, for us to continue."
As the Ugandan team's total was not big enough, Al Saffar advised his batsmen to play their natural game. "I told them not to think about the score, but try and get runs off every possible opportunity, and they did just that," he said.
On UAE's chances against USA today, Al Saffar said: "We have a very good chance as I strongly believe that we can beat all the teams." UAE will be playing US on the same wicket they played Uganda. "It is a very good batting wicket and any team which can bowl a good line and length can win the match," he said.
Al Saffar also revealed that his bowlers are doing a better job now: "The bowlers are now bowling to a field and as I said earlier, we are clicking as a team now. We are looking much better now. I am likely to field the same winning side and we will go full out to qualify for the World Cup."
