Twitter Reactions: Akmal, Malik take Pakistan home after early scare

By Ankit Mishra

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Pakistan
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Pakistan cricketer Mohammad Amir (R) celebrate with his teammates after the dismissal of the United Arab Emirates cricketer Muhammad Kaleem during the Asia Cup T20 cricket tournament match between Pakistan and United Arab Emirates at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Dhaka on February 29, 2016. AFP PHOTO / MUNIR UZ ZAMAN / AFP / MUNIR UZ ZAMAN (Photo credit should read MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images)

UAE decided to bat first on a wicket that looked different from the ones we have seen in the series thus far. Pakistan came hard at them with Mohammad Amir bowling one of the most economical spells in T20Is. He was one bowler no UAE batsman had an idea about. Amir returned with figures of 4-1-6-2. Other fast bowlers Mohammad Irfan and Sami also got a wicket each; but they let UAE off the hook in the middle overs with spinners operating from both ends on a split field. Their batsmen also did well to get to 129.

It was going to be a tricky chase keeping in mind the typical qualities of Pakistan batting lineup and it looked like they were going to make a mess out of this chase when Emirates skipper Amjad Javed got 3 early wickets in his first couple of overs. But Umar Akmal and Shoaib Malik batted brilliantly to first soak up the pressure, get set and then played their shots. Both the batsmen got their half centuries and ensured there we no more jolts in the chase. In the end, Pakistan managed to win the match by 7 wickets. UAE have experience if not a win to take back from here.

Following the game skipper Javed said: “I think today, we changed our mind and batted first. Our target was 120 but we ended up with 10 extra. We are still learning. The partnership in between of Malik and Akmal took the game away from us. You have to contribute in your team’s performance so I’m happy to score some runs and take early wickets to pull Pakistan back. Need to take all those catches when playing against a top side. Maybe because of our previous performance against India, our coach wasn’t too optimistic.”

Pakistan skipper Shahid Afridi was relatively happy with the performance of his boys and felt his team has warmed up with this game. He said “In this format, you can’t sit relaxed in the dressing room. Still making some mistakes which we can’t afford. I just told batsmen to play their game, don’t worry about the runs but don’t lose wickets up front. When we took 3-4 wickets, we thought we would get them out for around 90-100. But they played well in the end which you expect in the T20 format. Would have been nice if we could have played this game before the India one, would have had a better idea of the conditions. Our next two games are very important against hosts Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.”

Here are the trends from Twitter on the Pakistan v UAE match:

 

Twitter world came hard at Afridi for his captaincy tactics today – Twitter Reactions: Twitter criticizes Shahid Afridi for his poor captaincy

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UAE Men’s 1stPakistanUmar AkmalShahid AfridiMohammad AmirShoaib MalikAmjad Javed