Dougie Brown, the UAE coach, says his side’s batsmen need to raise their game if they are to clinch the Anib Challenge Series against Nepal.
The sides meet in the deciding third match at the ICC Academy in Dubai on Monday, with the series level at 1-1 after Nepal thrashed their hosts on Saturday.
The national team fell to a 145-run defeat after they were fired out for just 97, with Sompal Kami taking five wickets, and Sandeep Lamichhane four.
The meagre return with the bat followed on from another worrying collapse a day earlier.
In Friday’s opening one-day international, the UAE had slipped to 73-7, before recovering to reach the 114 they needed to win.
Brown said the batting malaise contradicts the form the UAE batsmen had shown in practice before the series started.
“How we have practiced is not how we are playing,” said Brown, whose side are missing two batting mainstays, Rohan Mustafa and Rameez Shahzad, through suspension.
“We have deliberately played in demanding conditions, conditions that are way harder than batting out there, to try and replicate the pressure of a game situation.
“If I’m honest, they’ve been playing as well as I’ve seen them bat. They have been outstanding in training and practice.
“The problem is, if you don’t take that into match situations, that is when you are going to be vulnerable. That is what has happened.”
The only half-century so far in the series was posted by a 16-year-old, Rohit Paudel, whose innings of 55 put Nepal in the ascendancy in the second match.
Brown said the low-scoring has been down to injudicious strokeplay rather than overly testing conditions.
“The people who have played well have played exactly as we have done in practice,” Brown said.
“They have played straight, they have left the ball, they have been patient, they haven’t been caught up in pressure. They have just played, played straight, and been successful.
“I know we are capable of doing that, but we have to take that practice and training into match situations, or we will put ourselves under a lot of pressure, as we have done in the past two games.”
