Junaid Siddique and Aryansh Sharma (Image credit: Agencies)

NEW DELHI: Powered by Junaid Siddique’s fifer and an 84-run partnership between Aryansh Sharma (74 not out) and Sohaib Khan (51), United Arab Emirates (UAE) opened their account in the ongoing T20 World Cup with a six-wicket victory over Canada on Friday at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi.The scoreboard read 66/4, and there was silence in one part of the dugout where the UAE players were seated. Harshit Kaushik was the latest batter to head back to the pavilion.

Opener Aryansh Sharma, who had made a solid start and already accumulated 44, stood tall at one end.What once looked like an easy chase of 151 suddenly felt like it was slipping out of their grip.Then came Sohaib Khan. All UAE needed for the much-needed oomph in the chase was someone to partner Aryansh. Sohaib provided that impetus. Facing Dilon Heyliger, he smashed 17 runs off the 17th over and added 13 runs off the 18th.The equation was simple: to win the game and pick up their first points on the board, they needed 26 off 12 balls.Watching his partner dominate the bowlers, Aryansh joined the party, as an 18-run over brought the equation closer to victory. A six off the first ball of the 19th over crushed Canadian dreams of opening their account in the tournament. Sohaib fell to Jaskarandeep Singh with the scores level, but it was nothing more than consolation.Earlier, UAE’s right-arm pace spearhead Junaid Siddique ripped through Canada’s batting with a probing spell of pace and bounce on a surface that offered just enough to keep batters honest. The Canadian innings, at no stage, found sustained tempo.When the drinks came on for the second time at the end of the 14th over, Canada had just reached 100 for four — a recovery of sorts after a harrowing start.Canada’s decision to bat first after winning the toss appeared questionable once they slumped to 39 for three in the powerplay. Timing the ball was difficult. Hitting boundaries was rare, and the first six overs bore evidence of that, with just four fours and no sixes coming off the Canadian willows.In fact, the entire innings produced only four sixes, three of them struck by Harsh Thaker.Thaker, 28, was the standout in a middle-order revival. First alongside Navneet Dhaliwal (34) and later with Shreyas Movva (21), Thaker dragged Canada out of danger and put them in a fighting position.Meanwhile, Dhaliwal’s dismissal was an unfortunate and interesting one. A direct hit at the keeper’s end caught him short, his bat stuck in the ground just outside the crease line and his right foot still airborne.The verdict went against him with the score on 96 for four.The final six overs, however, belonged to Siddique. The momentum of the comeback ebbed away as wickets fell in clusters.Thaker (50), Movva and Saad Bin Zafar (5) all succumbed to Siddique, who had already removed Yuvraj Samra (5) and Dilpreet Bajwa (11) earlier in the innings.Siddique’s spell of 5/35 culminated in the tournament’s second five-wicket haul of the 2026 T20 World Cup, as his craft of generating sharp pace and awkward bounce forced miscued strokes, with all his victims caught in the field.Brief score: Canada 150/7 in 20 overs (Harsh Thaker 50, Navneet Dhaliwal 34; Junaid Siddique 5/35, Muhammad Jawadullah 1/16)UAE 151/5 in 19.4 overs (Aryansh Sharma 74 not out, Sohaib Khan 51; Saad Bin Zafar 3/14)UAE won by five wickets

United Arab Emirates’s Muhammad Zohaib plays a shot (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

NEW DELHI: The Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) announced on Monday that all-rounder Muhammad Zohaib has been sent back from the squad due to disciplinary issues but did not share more details on the matter. “Muhammad Zohaib has been sent back due to disciplinary issues. More details will be provided in due course. ECB will at this stage not make any further comment on the matter,” the board said in a statement.

Meanwhile, UAE captain Muhammad Waseem made it clear that tensions around India-Pakistan matches do not affect his team ahead of their opening game in the T20 World Cup against New Zealand on Tuesday. He stressed that the UAE squad is united regardless of nationality. “No, to be honest, there is no India-Pakistan. We are playing for the UAE and we are always treating ourselves like a family,” Waseem said. He added, “We are living like a family, friends. We are spending time together, eating together. There is no Indian-Pakistani in the UAE team to be honest.”Waseem also praised Indian head coach Lalchand Rajput, who joined the team in 2024. He said Rajput’s experience has helped the players understand conditions better. “He has so much experience about India. He is working with the boys; he is telling everything about the pitches and the other things. So it helped us a lot and we are working on that and inshallah you will see tomorrow the same things he told to boys,” he added.Looking ahead to their match against New Zealand, Waseem said UAE would take confidence from their historic win over the Black Caps in 2023. “Our strategy is very simple. We beat them before in UAE but this time it’s a different venue, different tournament, different ground, and different game also,” he said. “So we came with the other plan right now… we prepared ourselves like a champion team. So inshallah, we will try to play a good cricket against them tomorrow.”He also said the team is well prepared, adding, “Yeah, preparation is going very good to be honest… we came here with a different mindset and mentality. So you will see tomorrow the way boys will play.”