The UAE’s cricketers could be forgiven for feeling trepidation when they take the field in Dubai on Wednesday and see the likes of Suryakumar Yadav and Jasprit Bumrah looking back at them.
They might be coming off a tri-series against Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as having beaten Bangladesh earlier in the year.
But matches against India hit different, given the celebrity of their players and the following the side in blue have everywhere they go.
It is the first time since 2016 – the last time they played in the Asia Cup – that the UAE have played against India’s senior men’s team.
If history is a guide, it is going to be tough. The national team have lost all four times they have played India in international cricket. No shock there, given the comparative resources of the two sides.
But at least the UAE’s current vintage have a couple of things going for them. Firstly, the India side is not sprinkled with quite as much stardust as when they met back in 2004, at the Asia Cup in Sri Lanka.
That India XI comprised perhaps the starriest batting line up in history: Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid and Yuvraj Singh.
And, secondly, at least the present UAE players are all pros who can devote themselves to cricket. Back in 2004, they all had day jobs.
“I don’t think I can ever forget that day,” said Naeemuddin Aslam, who had to take time off from his new job with National Bank of Dubai to play in that Asia Cup. “It was an unreal day.”
Aslam, who is now 43, was born and raised in Dubai. In 2004, he was part of a UAE side picked to travel to Sri Lanka for the Asia Cup.
That meant a fixture against the might of India, who had been defeated finalists in the World Cup a year earlier, while Aslam was still at university in Dubai studying for his degree.
Facing India, for a young player of Indian origin, was the stuff of dreams – but with a potentially nightmarish lining, too. Given the firepower in India’s line up, it could be a bloodbath.
India were fresh off their first series against Pakistan for five years, and Sehwag’s star was heading into orbit after becoming India’s first Test triple centurion.
“I’m still getting goosebumps talking about that day right now, that’s what it does to me,” Aslam said. “Obviously we were really ecstatic, excited, anxious, nervous, a bit of everything.
“We know it’s on the back of Virender Sehwag’s 300. We’re trying to keep ourselves calm, but we know that we know what he can do if he gets going.
“A couple of days before the game, we just happened to turn on the telly, a bunch of us, and we caught Sehwag’s interview on an Indian TV channel.
“The reporter is asking him, ‘Now that you’ve got 300 and you're the first Indian to get there, what is your next challenge?’.
“The guy very casually says that he’d like to get a double hundred in an ODI. We’re all looking at that interview knowing that, two days later, he’s going to come face to face with us. Is that what he means?
“So, needless to say, we’re even more nervous.”
India won the toss and elected to bat. So Sehwag had use of a nice, fresh wicket.
“That moment where Sachin and Sehwag were walking on to the field was absolutely surreal,” Aslam said.
“We watched these guys growing up. We idolised them. And, on that day, we’re level, we’re equal.”
Aslam, a chatty and amiable soul, was positioned at square leg – rather than his usual berth at cover point – meaning he had someone to talk to.
“I was standing next to Billy Doctrove, the umpire from West Indies,” Aslam said. “I was trying to tell him, ‘Look, it’s a huge moment for me, hailing from India, to be standing on the field and playing against India’.
“And he couldn’t get it. He didn’t understand how that works. In most countries, if you live in that country, you get citizenship by virtue of having spent that amount of time in that country. But in the UAE and the Gulf states, obviously it doesn’t work that way.
“When I explained it to him, he’s like, ‘Oh, so most of you guys are expats?’. He then understood most of us were expatriates, barring [off-spinner Mohammed] Tauqir.”
And, then, into action. Off the third ball of the game, Sehwag nudged a delivery from Ali Asad just behind square on the leg side, and set off for a run – only for Tendulkar to send him back.
“He catches an inside edge, it trickles down to a few yards to my right,” Aslam said. “Then short and diminutive Naeem Aslam grabs the ball and throws the stumps down. The rest is history.”
Sehwag gone for a duck. It was the dream start for Aslam and the UAE.
Even without the pyrotechnic Sehwag, India were not short of batting muscle. To limit them to 260 for six – Dravid made a century – was a mini-triumph for the UAE.
The national team were aware there was a disparity between the teams. But Syed Abid Ali, the coach, and captain Khurram Khan, counselled during the change between innings that, if they could remain calm and keep the game simple, they could make a dent in the chase.
India’s bowling, though, was too good. Irfan Pathan was the coming man of Indian swing bowling at the time. As the UAE were fired out for 144, he snaffled three victims – including Aslam for a golden duck with a trademark booming inswinger.
“Billy Doctrove raised the dreaded finger,” Aslam said. “I thought I had created enough of a rapport with him, but no, apparently not. [But] it couldn't have been more out.
“After the game, I had a call back home and I was saying, ‘Sorry, Dad, I let you all down.’ And my dad says, ‘You know, you’re not the first person to get out for a first ball duck?’.
“Gary Sobers was his hero, and he said, ‘Sobers has done it many times, and the ball that you got out literally was unplayable'.”
And after that tour, it was back to real life. The UAE did not have ODI status, as they do now. International T20 cricket was not yet a thing. So the cricketers of the national team had to wait another four years before they could add another official ODI to their records.
For Aslam, it meant going back to the office, and looking forward to recreational matches on weekends.
“We all played for the passion,” he said. "None of us had the opportunity to make it big.
“Most of the guys I played with were either from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka. I was born and raised here, so I didn’t even have an opportunity to play in India. This was all the cricket I knew.
“We took our passion to the next level and tried really hard to keep our fitness. After an 8-to-10-hour day job, we used to drive from Dubai to Sharjah, get stuck in an hour and a half of traffic.
“We would then reach there at 7pm, have four hours of training, drive back home and then go back to the daily grind all over again next morning. It wasn’t easy.”
