Abu Dhabi tour diary - part 3
Journalist Fred Atkins is travelling with the Lashings World XI on their tour to Abu Dhabi and is keeping a diary of his trip. Here is today's entry:
Tuesday: Anyone harbouring doubts over the standard of cricket in the UAE need only have witnessed the way the Abu Dhabi Chairman's XI coolly killed off the Lashings World XI in the final over of their Twenty20 match last night.
It would be glib to dismiss this as a shock result. The Lashings players knew they were in for a difficult game against a team assembled from the cream of Abu Dhabi's cricketers and whose average age was probably ten to fifteen years lower.
Yet they may not have been expecting a classic encounter when the team bus rolled across the sand to arrive at the surreal Sheikh Zayed stadium, a space age venue encircled by sand and half a mile from the nearest settlement of any kind.
With 45 minutes to go until the start of play predictions of a crowd of 3,000 looked fanciful as paying customers were comfortably outnumbered by security staff. Even that number would have looked small in a stadium designed to stage full international matches, but happily a steady trickle of fans swelled the gate, so that by the end the kind of respectable numbers you'd see at a four-day county game were present to witness an enthralling finish.
The way Chris Silverwood set about the Abu Dhabi openers offered little in the way of encouragement for fans hoping for a classic. He bowled Mohammed Iqbal for four and removed the menacing-looking Amjad Javed for 24 before taking his third wicket courtesy of a superb diving catch by Dinesh Mongia.
When John Emburey trapped Kashif Butt lbw for 14, Abu Dhabi were 77-5 and the unsatisfying prospect of a double-figure target looked a distinct possibility.
Instead the home side used their remaining overs intelligently. Although nobody made a huge score everyone contributed something, with Alawi Shukri's 31 anchoring the innings and a worrying number of extras (23) setting Lashings a target of 172.
The interval witnessed the arrival of Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan and the presence of royalty may have focussed the home side's minds.
Abu Dhabi's bowlers drew blood early on, when Marvan Atapattu was brilliantly caught, before Graeme Hick's arrival at the crease tilted the odds back in the visitors' favour as despite not having picked up a bat in months, he blunted the attack.
However, when he was clean bowled in the ninth over, Lashings' task began to look improbable.
Calculatedly tight bowling forced the visitors into too many dot balls and singles, pushing the required run rate above 12 an over, until Dinesh Mongia intervened.
Swishing successive fours, Dinesh ignited the run chase and gave the paying public full value. Swatting sixes around the ground, he dragged Lashings back from the brink and left them as slight favourites, needing 22 to win off the final two overs.
However, the penultimate over, bowled by Sajjad Saeed, proved critical.
He produced a dot with his first delivery and restricted Lashings to just six further runs, leaving them with six balls to chalk off 16.
Saqib Ali bowled a dot, gave away a single and then effectively ended the game when he took two wickets in successive balls to leave Lashings needing snookers.
The restrained dignity of Abu Dhabi's celebrations spoke volumes. This was not an FA Cup giant-killing performance, it was a professionally executed victory over an international class XI.
Lashings will try to restore some pride today when they take on an Etihad XI in the grounds of the Emirates Palace Hotel.
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