A phenomenal five-wicket haul from Junaid Siddique, coupled with a fiery half-century from opener Aryansh Sharma, helped UAE topple Canada by five wickets in its ICC T20 World Cup clash at Delhi’s Arun Jaitley Stadium on Friday.
With this win, the UAE is in third place in Group D with one win and one loss, behind New Zealand and South Africa, who have won both their games. With matches left against South Africa and Afghanistan, the UAE is still in contention for a Super Eight spot. However, that outcome is far less likely for Canada, which has lost both of its matches so far.
Canada won the toss and elected to bat first.
Canada was down to 38/3 in 5.1 overs, and it was a 58-run stand between Navneet Dhaliwal (34 in 28 balls, with four boundaries) and Harsh Thaker (50 in 41 balls, with two fours and three sixes) that offered some stability. Shreyas Movva (21 in 21 balls, with two fours) played a decent cameo, powering Canada to 150/7 in 20 overs, a modest total, with Junaid (5/35) being the pick of the bowlers.
During the run-chase of 151 runs, Aryansh was in the thick of the action, but the pair of skipper Muhammed Waseem (4) and Alishan Sharafu (5) and middle-order batters Mayank Kumar (4) and Harshit Kaushik (5) were removed quickly, reducing UAE to 66/4 in 12.3 overs.
Aryansh stabilised things by joining forces with Sohaib Khan (51 in 29 balls, with four boundaries and four sixes), taking the team to the brink of a win with an 84-run stand untill Sohaib was undone on the third ball of the final over. Aryansh (74* in 53 balls, with six fours and three sixes) kept his cool and took his team to a win with two balls and five wickets left.
Saad Bin Zafar (3/14 in four overs) was the pick of the bowlers for Canada, while Jaskaran Singh and Kaleem Sana also got a wicket. (ANI)
