When the UAE exited the T20 World Cup in the first round in India earlier this year, coach Lalchand Rajput immediately specified what the next aim was: qualification for the 50-over version.
It seemed fanciful, bordering a pipe dream. Ahead of their return to Cricket World Cup League Two (CWCL2) on Monday, the national team are bottom of the one-day international rankings.
They are last in the eight-team qualifying league, which is finally edging towards its climax. The top four in the CWCL2 progress directly for the global qualifier, with the top four in that making it through to a modified World Cup next year.
The meandering qualification process has a safety net. The bottom four in the league play in repechage play-off, potentially in Oman in December, alongside sides from further down the competition pyramid, and can get back into the global qualifier from that route.
There are still enough points for the UAE to play for, despite being so far adrift of the top four. The national team have 12 of their 36 matches in CWCL2 still to play.
It means they could end up playing 12 ODIs, plus an extra competition – the repechage play-off of at least five games – between now and the end of the year.
All of which is a mealy way of explaining why one of the best players the UAE has ever had is currently sidelined on account of being “rested”.
That is the official reason given for the absence of Muhammad Waseem from the tour party in Scotland this month.
The national team will play two matches against Scotland and two against Canada over the next week and a half in Dundee.
Waseem was the captain the last time the UAE played an ODI, against Oman in Nepal back in May. Now, he is the latest conspicuous absentee from the UAE side, a victim of the most haphazard of selection policies.
None of the players in the top 10 run-scorers in the UAE’s ODI history are in the squad.
The top two on that list are Vriitya Aravind, who has been in good touch on the other side of the Atlantic with Desert Vipers in the Global Super League in Guyana, and Waseem.
To emphasise the point about selection, there were just two players in the starting XI for their most recent ODI – Waseem and Junaid Siddique – who played in the first match of the CWCL2.
That was the first match of Rajput’s tenure. On his watch, the UAE have played 24 ODIs, and lost 17.
Now Waseem has been jettisoned, too. The official line about him being rested seems a stretch. The UAE have played eight ODIs in the past 12 months, and it has been three months since the last one.
Not exactly the sort of excessive workload that should necessitate one of the leading players being swapped out.
If he is no longer part of their ODI plans, that might work to his favour anyway. Waseem has missed out on many a payday while trying to carry the UAE in CWCL2 series that have clashed with T20 leagues.
The players in the ODI side could be set to do exactly that later this year. Their final CWCL2 tri-series, against Netherlands and Oman, then the repechage tournament, could clash with the DP World International League T20 in November and December.
Being ruled out of that means missing out on a substantial salary boost for the leading UAE players.
How the national team will fare in Waseem’s absence in Scotland will be intriguing to see. On the surface, they had an ideal lead in to the tri-series. They played a two match series in scenic Jersey, against a competitive home team.
They won both games convincingly, with enough good cricket played for it to be a highly productive workout.
All that was achieved without three of their key players. An administrative issue meant Harpreet Bhatia – the captain of the tour squad – Akshdeep Nath and Adeeb Usmani did not make it to Jersey.
Those three are Indian-born batters who received UAE passports earlier this year, making them immediately eligible for UAE selection.
At least they showed signs in Jersey that they can cope without them. The standout performer there was the Sharjah-raised opener Aryansh Sharma, who made a century and 86 to set up the two wins.
Given all the uncertainty over so many of the other positions in the line up, it is encouraging to see the flourishing of one of the UAE’s own.
