Afghanistan and United Arab Emirates will face each other in the first of three-match T20I series starting from December 29. All the matches of this short series are scheduled to take place at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium in Sharjah. The ground is pretty much short and witnessed a lot of high-scoring matches especially during the Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2020 when the tournament was played behind closed doors due to COVID-19 pandemic.
UAE are playing in the shortest format after almost a two-month break. They reached the semifinal of the T20 World Cup Asia Qualifier only to lose to Nepal and their dream to make it to the mega event next year in the West Indies and the USA shattered. Nevertheless, the team will be looking forward to playing some good cricket against a strong team like Afghanistan.
The visitors, meanwhile, will be without their talisman Rashid Khan who has also missed the ongoing Big Bash League (BBL) for the Adelaide Strikers due to back injury. Moreover, there has been a bit of controversy brewing as three of their cricketers have been denied NOCs to play in T20 league for asking not to pick them in the central contract. It remains to be seen if Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Naveen-ul-Haq and Fazalhaq Farooqi will be including in the side for this series.
Sharjah Pitch Report - T20I numbers game
Average score - 135 (Last three matches)
Highest score chased - 133
Lowest score defended - 182
Schedule
1st T20I - December 29
2nd T20I - December 31
3rd T20I - January 2
All the matches of this series are set to start at 7:30 PM IST
Where to watch UAE vs AFG T20I series
Live streaming of this three-match T20I series will be available on Fancode.
Squads
UAE - Mayank, Waseem Muhammad, Sagar Kalyan, Rahul Chopra, Tanish Suri, Muhammad Zuhaib, Akif Raja, Ayman Ahamed, Muhammad Jawadullah, Omid Rahman, Rahul Bhatia, Aayan Khan, Dhruv Parashar, Nilansh Keswani, Samal Udawaththa, Ali Naseer
Afghanistan - Darwish Rasooli, Ibrahim Zadran, Ikram Ali Khil, Mohammad Ishaq, Bahir Shah, Bilal Sami, Hashamtullah Shahidi (C), Reyaz Hassain, Hazratullah Zazai, Najibullah Zadran, Sediqullah Atal, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Abdul Rahman, Qais Ahmad, Farid Malik, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Yamin Ahmadzai, Saleem Safi, Naveen-ul-Haq, Noor Ahmad, Rashid Khan, Azmatullah Omarzai, Gulbadin Naib, Rahmat Shah, Sharafuddin Ashraf, Ziaur Rahman, Ijaz Ahmadzai, Karim Janat, Mohammad Nabi
