Despite a crushing nine-wicket defeat to defending champions Sri Lanka in their opening game of the Women’s T20 Asia Cup in Dubai on Saturday, UAE captain Esha Oza remained confident of bouncing back with strong performances to be in contention for a place in the semifinals.
The UAE were bowled out for a paltry 79 in 20 overs, as only four of their batters, including Esha (18), managed to reach double figures.
The Sri Lankans were brilliant on the field, with their bowlers leading the charge and their fielders remaining sharp from the first ball to the final ball of the UAE innings.
In reply, skipper Chamari Athapaththu, a modern icon in women’s international cricket, finished the game off in style with a 25-ball unbeaten 48 as the Lankans reached home in just 7.5 overs.
The gulf in class was apparent as Lanka ruthlessly exposed the home team’s inexperience at the highest level.
This is the UAE’s third straight appearance at the Asia Cup, but Saturday’s game was only their third encounter against the hugely experienced Sri Lanka, a Test-playing nation.
Esha, a prolific batter, admitted that the lack of exposure against elite teams means the UAE will face a tough challenge every time they come across top opponents on the international stage.
“They (Sri Lanka) have played a lot of cricket before coming into this tournament as well,” Esha said at the post-match press conference.
“The tournament we played before coming into this competition was the ACC Premier Cup, where we played the Associate teams. We get the opportunity to play against these top-ranked sides only once every two years.
“So I think definitely more exposure to these teams would make us better as a team as well.”
Sri Lanka, according to Esha, pounced on every opportunity to attack the home team.
“They came out all guns blazing. I wouldn’t think that even if they had batted first, they would have held back for too long, because that’s the way modern T20 cricket is played, even in the women’s game,” the UAE captain said.
“That’s something we’re trying to implement as well. But obviously, there’s a difference between Associate and (ICC) Full Member nations. We might take a bit more time to get there, but that’s something we’re working on as well.”
One of the key areas of improvement for the UAE is rotating the strike when the rival bowlers put pressure on their batters.
On Saturday, a few of the home batters, under pressure to score, got out to poor shots after playing a few dot balls.
“I think that’s something we didn’t do right today. After a few dot balls, we went for big shots straightaway, and we know it’s not that easy to clear these boundaries,” she said.
“That’s something we need to keep in mind when we train again. If we’re getting dot balls, we need to look to score singles along the ground and maybe look for boundary options along the ground at the start, instead of playing three or four dot balls and then trying to hit one in the air.”
Esha will hope her team improves on that when they face debutants Indonesia in their next Group B game on September 4.
The UAE need a victory against the Indonesians before their final group-stage game against Bangladesh on September 8.
“Now we have quite a few days off. We have five days off, so we go back to the drawing board and start working on what didn’t go well,” said Esha.
“Two points against Indonesia are very important, and then two points against Bangladesh as well. But we can’t think too far ahead. We’ll take the Indonesia game first and, hopefully, things go well in that game. Then we’ll take the good things forward into the next game.”
Source: Khaleej Times