West Indies made to fight hard to stop ECB XI

Dubai: West Indies team were forced to fight hard to defeat Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) XI team in a Twenty20 warm up match at the ICC Academy on Tuesday night.
Though the UAE national team’s left arm spinner Ahmad Raza and right-arm pacer Mohammad Naveed took three wickets each to restrict West Indies to 166 for seven in 20 overs, the visiting world champions team won the match by 22 runs.
Batting first, West Indies opener Johnson Charles began by scoring some powerful shots over the leg side off ECB team captain and pacer Amjad Javed’s bowling. Charles hit 42 runs before he was caught and bowled by Raza.
After Qadeer Ahmed had opener Evin Lewis caught behind for one, Raza dismissed wicketkeeper Andre Fletcher for 17 and Chadwick Walton for just one run. Following Charles’ wicket, West Indies slipped to 74 for four in 10 overs.
Rovman Powell hit 38 runs from 31 balls and 20-year-old Nicholas Pooran scored an unbeaten 47 off just 23 deliveries to put on 52 runs for the fifth wicket.

Naveed then bowled brilliantly to end Powell’s knock and also take the prize wicket of West Indies skipper Carlos Brathwaite by clean bowling him for one. Naveed and Raza took three wickets for 20 runs each.
Speaking to Gulf News, Raza said: “It felt nice to bowl at the West Indies batsmen and keep them under pressure. It was very pleasing to do well against the world champions and prove my worth. Overall we played a decent T20 game and it has helped to boost the confidence of all my teammates too. It is very important to test our skills against the best and we all would love to play more such game to close the gap in the standard of our game.”
Raza had even produced a five-wicket spell against the formidable Pakistan team last year.
ECB chased through opener Mohammad Qasim, who hit 46 runs off 54 balls with five boundaries. Shaiman Anwar, too, cracked a quick 31 off 23 balls with five boundaries before leg spinner Samuel Badree picked three wickets backed by off-spinner Sunil Narine restricted UAE to 144 for 6.
Rameez Shehzad with 19 runs and Javed with an unbeaten 16 tried to get ECB closer to the target.
Brief scores: West Indies bt Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) XI by 22 runs. West Indies 166 for 7 (Nicholas Pooran 47n.o, Johnson Charles 42, Ahmad Raza 3 for 20, Mohammad Naveed 3 for 20) ECB XI 144 for 6 (Mohammad Qasim 46, Shaiman Anwar 31, Samuel Badree 3 for 20, Sunil Narine 2 for 21).