Oman beat the United Arab Emirates by 8 runs in a thrilling encounter between the sides in the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup League 2.

After winning the toss and electing to bat first, Oman negotiated the powerplay in a much better fashion than their previous two outings. Kashyap Prajapati played a gritty knock at the top, eventually falling 6 runs short of a half-century.Unfortunately for the visitors, important wickets in regular intervals followed, but a 77 run-stand between Khawar Ali and Ayaan Khan corrected that pattern and arrested the slide. Man of the Match Khawar looked magnificent for his 78-ball 63 and Ayaan finished on a well-made 31 himself.

The UAE put in a spirited shift on the field too. They picked up important wickets at just the right time and kept Oman’s scoring rate down with a combination of tight bowling and alert fielding. Zahoor Khan was the pick of their bunch, ending the day with figures of 4/51. A late 21 run blitz from Sandeep Goud ensured that the visitors got past the 200 mark. Oman ultimately finished on 221/7 after 50 overs.

In response, after losing Muhammad Waseem for a run-a-ball 19, Chirag Suri and Vriitya Aravind consolidated the UAE innings with a 77-run stand of their own. Suri in particular looked remarkably composed in the middle, going on to match Khawar’s individual tally of 63 runs as well. However, while the latter provided a priceless breakthrough in the form of Aravind’s wicket, it was Fayyaz Butt who took over as the architect of Oman’s win with the ball. All 3 of his scalps had enormous significance attached to them. First, he dismissed Chirag Suri to place the game back on a balance. He then broke a dangerous looking 28-run stand between Basil Hameed and Rohan Mustafa with the wicket of the former, to secure Oman’s position in the driver’s seat.

Finally, while the UAE lower order struggled to match up to Oman’s late all-round brilliance in the field, it was Fayyaz who picked up the all-important final wicket to concretely end all their hopes of a successful run chase. The hosts were bundled out for 213 with 9 balls to spare.  

Oman’s overall performance had shades of their game against the same opponents on March 5th, wherein they came out on the right side of a close contest, thanks to individual quality and collective endeavor. They take on Namibia next on March 12th.  

BRIEF SCORES:

Oman 221/7 in 50 overs (Khawar Ali 63(78) 8 x 4; Zahoor Khan 51/4) beat UAE 213/10 in 48.3 overs (Chirag Suri 63(87) 8 x 4; Fayyaz Butt 28/3) by 8 runs