Bad day for Khan as opposing captain targets 500-plus

Kabir Khan, the UAE coach, admitted that he was far from happy with his side's performance against Namibia which has left them facing a huge first innings deficit.

DUBAI // Kabir Khan, the UAE coach, admitted that he was far from happy with his side's performance against Namibia yesterday which has left them facing a huge first innings deficit.

"It has been a bad day," he said at the end of the first day of the Intercontinental Shield final at the ICC Global Cricket Academy ground at Dubai Sports City which left his team 188 runs behind.

"First of all we lost an important toss on a wicket that had a little bit of moisture in it for the first hour and a half. All credit goes to the bowlers."

Having earlier reduced Khan's side to 14 for four, Namibia's bowlers went on to bowl out the UAE for 79.

"From one side, it was swing [bowling] and experience, and the other it was pace," added the UAE coach.

"They never let us come back into the game. The batsmen were always struggling."

Khan conceded that his side had their backs to the wall and it would take a gigantic effort from them to claw their way back into the contest.

But he remained hopeful they were capable of mounting a fightback today.

"It is in their favour. But you cannot say anything about cricket. Our batting can always come back.

"It is only the first day and you can't say the game is finished. If we put up a nice total, then who knows what will happen because it will be them who bat on the fourth day," he said.

A delighted Craig Williams, the captain of a team in command of the game, said his side expected to capitalise on their strong start.

"We will obviously hope to bat for a long period [today] and get ourselves a sizeable lead of 500-plus.

"We have a long batting line-up with a lot of senior batters yet to come.

"I am confident that we can bat out the entire day [today].

"We've trained hard for this. Silverware is always worth fighting for."

Scorecard

UAE, 1st innings
Amjad Ali    b KB Burger        0
Arshad Ali    lbw b KB Burger    8
K Khan    b KB Burger        0
Saqib Ali    b Klazinga            4
Anwar    run out (KB Burger)    13
Aslam    c van Schoor b Klazinga    38
Patil    b KB Burger        0
Tauqir    lbw b KB Burger    0
Javed    c van Schoor b KB Burger    2
Sarwar    not out        4
Zubair    b KB Burger        0
Extras    1w, 1b, 4lb, 4nb    10
Total (all out, 25.3 overs)    79
Fall of wickets: 1-1; 2-8; 3-14; 4-14; 5-51; 6-51; 7-51; 8-55; 9-78; 10-79
Bowling: Klazinga 11-3-35-2; KB Burger 12.3-3-38-7; SF Burger 2-1-1-0

Namibia, 1st innings
Van Schoor run out (Sarwar)    4
Steenkamp    c Patil b Arshad Ali    66
Burger    not out            73
Williams    run out (Sarwar)    116
Verwey    not out            0
Extras    4lb, 4nb        8
Total (for three, 61 overs)    267
Fall of wickets: 1-5; 2-105; 3-266;
Bowling: Sarwar 10-0-50-0; Zubair 6-0-23-0; Javed 12-1-70-0; Tauqir 12-1-46-1; 12-1-46-1; 9-2-29-0
Namibia lead by 188 runs with 7 wickets left in the 1st innings