UAE grab five-wicket win

United Arab Emirates 135 for 5 (Iqbal 43, Allen 2-26) beat United States of America 134 for 8 (Nadkarni 59, Ahmed 4-23) by five wickets
Scorecard

United Arab Emirates completed a comfortable five-wicket victory over the United States of America in their World Twenty20 Qualifier warm-up game in Sharjah. A middle-order collapse meant USA could only muster 134 for 8, and after opener Mohammad Iqbal's brutal 43 the target was chased down with 11 balls to spare.

USA had looked set for a large total after Sushil Nadkarni and Carl Wright put on 64 in the first eight overs. Nadkarni, who has a reputation as a prolific batsman in American cricket, blazed his way to a half-century, but his dismissal by Fayyaz Ahmed sparked a disastrous collapse as seven wickets fell for only 25 runs in the second half of the innings.

Ahmed grabbed three wickets in four balls - including the captain Steve Massiah and Sudesh Dhaniram for first-ball ducks - while Ahmed Raza and Shadeep Silva ensured there would be no fightback from the lower order. Orlando Baker's breezy cameo took the score past 130, but USA would have been hoping for 30 to 40 more runs after the bright start to their innings.

UAE's reply got off to a brisk start courtesy of Iqbal. He smashed six boundaries, including three sixes, to take the pressure off his opening partner, Arfan Haider, who played a far more sedate innings before he was dismissed by Imran Awan. Iqbal was run out in the same over, but calm innings from Saqib Ali and captain Khurram Khan ensured there would be no repeat of USA's collapse.

Timroy Allen, the young Jamaican-born fast bowler, struck twice in the 18th over to remove Khan and Ahmed, but by then the result was all but sealed. These two teams meet again at Abu Dhabi in two days time for their second warm-up game before the World Twenty20 Qualifiers begin on February 9.