Cricket One Day International Prediction

United Arab Emirates vs West Indies - Match Preview

🏏 6 June 2023 - 16:30 GMT +0

There was really little to fault about the West Indies’ comprehensive first ODI win against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Sharjah on Sunday and not much else to suggest that the remainder of the series will be a highly competitive affair. The hosts have not got long to debrief and learn from this valuable experience with the second game beginning less than 48 hours after the first concluded.

The UAE rot started from the top when captain Muhammad Waseem recorded a second-ball duck on his debut against a full-member nation, bowled through the gate by a fairly innocuous Keemo Paul delivery. Waseem assessed after the loss that his team were “50 to 60 runs short”, though that may be generous to himself and his teammates when considering that their score of 202 was chased down with seven wickets to spare and at a rate of 5.83 runs per over. That suggests the UAE probably needed at least 300 runs to bowl at!

Waseem “took some positives” from the match, such as the accurate bowling of 17-year-old left-arm spinner Aayan Khan, one of three wicket-takers for the innings and the most economical of the lot. Whilst Aayan is not the most prolific wicket-taker of the squad, averaging less than 1.5 wickets per ODI, his career economy rate of 3.47rpo has put pressure on the place of last year’s T20 World Cup hat-trick hero Karthik Meiyappan, who was flogged for 55 runs from his 4.2 overs bowled in the first ODI.

With five of their six bowlers amongst the wickets and no batter dismissed for fewer than 20 runs, almost all of the West Indian players should have something to be satisfied with. The two-time World Cup champions began a new era under incoming head coach Daren Sammy in style as no bowler conceded at a rate of more than five runs per over and the first three partnerships all forged at least 40 runs together.

The quickfire nature of this series should help them build some strong momentum for the World Cup Qualifier in Zimbabwe, in which they will be taking on mostly associated opposition without the possibility of being able to fail more than once. Captain Shai Hope dropped himself down to number five and stood out of the way as opener Brandon King scored his first ODI century in oppressive heat, which was bordering on 40 degrees when the match began at 4:30 pm local time.

King suffered from cramps so discomforting that he was unable to accept the Player of the Match award after his innings, so when accounting for the single day of rest available it may not come as a shock if he sits this game out and returns for the third on Friday. The seven starters from the first ODI who are a part of the World Cup Qualifier squad (King, Brooks, Carty, Hope, Chase, Paul, Cariah) are expected to play throughout the series save for King’s potential rest-up.

⚡ Players to watch: 34-year-old UAE bowler Zahoor Khan is desperate to clinch his last opportunity to play at a World Cup after not being part of the 2015 squad and having taken wickets in nine of his ten ODIs against full member nations, he has an important role to play in this series.

Khan’s wicket from the first ODI, Johnson Charles, may have just two more ODIs left in his career after he missed the World Cup Qualifier squad. He ought not to be surprised about his non-selection, though, with his 24 on Sunday his 15th consecutive ODI innings without a half-century (averaging just 19.73 during that period).

📋 Stat attack: The UAE has conceded at least five total sixes in six of their eight ODIs in 2023.

• Just three of the last 14 opening partnerships in Sharjah ODIs (by any team) were worth 50+ runs.
• Even after his 16 in the first game, Rameez Shahzad averages 49.44 in home ODIs.
• King hit four sixes off the bowling of Meiyappan in the first ODI for a total of 28 runs from 14 balls faced.
• Keemo Paul has not claimed consecutive multiple wicket hauls in his last nine ODIs, whilst Odean Smith and Yannic Cariah have never done so.
• Five of Shamarh Brooks’ ten scores of 40+ runs in ODIs were against Ireland, the Netherlands or the UAE.