Batsmen Shaiman Anwar and Chirag Suri have been included in the United Arab Emirates squad for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier, which will be hosted in the UAE from October 18.
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Anwar, 40, and Suri, 24, hadn’t featured in UAE’s most recent matches, the 4-0 sweep against the Netherlands in early August, since they were participating in the Global T20 in Canada. Both batsmen come into the side in decent form, having made noteworthy contributions to their teams in theT20 league.
Turning out for Winnipeg Hawks, Anwar, who at No.21 is the highest ranked player from an Associate nation on the MRF Tyres ICC T20I Rankings for Batsmen, was the third-highest scorer in the tournament. He made 296 runs in eight matches, striking at 190.96, with a high score of 90. He has one T20 International hundred in 32 matches in the format.
The pools for the @ICC Men’s #T20WorldCup will see eight teams fighting it out for four places in the Super 12. The six qualifiers to join Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in the Group Stage will be determined in the Global Qualifier played in the UAE later this year. pic.twitter.com/oBvQ0Eur42
— T20 World Cup (@T20WorldCup) 24 April 2019
“We know Shaiman is an incredibly talented player,” Dougie Brown, the UAE coach, told The National. “He is on the older side, but he is still a really fit guy and his batting over the past couple of months has been nothing short of outstanding. To go to the Global T20 and out-bat Chris Lynn in the number of games he did, that is really exciting for me as the coach of the national side.
“He has brought that form back to our environment as well, which is excellent,” he added. “There are six games in the group stage. If Shaiman can influence three of them – and he is good enough to influence all of them – it will be really exciting for us.”
Waheed Ahmed and Darius D’Silva were the two players left out of the Muhammad Naveed-led squad.
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“Our goal in this tournament is to finish top of our pool and secure direct qualification into the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2020,” said Waleed Bukhatir, Emirates Cricket Board member and chief selector, in a statement. “We are confident in our side’s abilities to help make this a reality.”
UAE are in Group B alongside Ireland, Oman, Hong Kong, Canada, Jersey and Nigeria. All their group stage matches will be at the Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi. They will face Oman on the opening day of the tournament.
Squad: Muhammad Naveed (c), Rohan Mustafa, Ashfaq Ahmed, Rameez Shahzad, Shaiman Anwar, Muhammad Usman, Muhammad Boota, Zawar Farid, Ghulam Shabbir (wk), Ahmed Raza, Sultan Ahmed, Imran Haider, Qadeer Ahmed, Chirag Suri, Zahoor Khan
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