Report card: United Arab Emirates

Results summary
Group stage ****Beat the Netherlands by 6 wickets
Lost to Papua New Guinea by 2 wickets
Lost to Bangladesh by 8 wickets

Play-off semi-final ****Lost to Thailand by 7 wickets

Seventh-place play-off ****Beat the Netherlands in the Super Over

Positives to take home
UAE’s positives were mostly restricted to the opening match of the tournament, when they survived an assault from Sterre Kalis to beat the tournament hosts by six wickets. Nisha Ali was the star for UAE then, scoring a 59-ball 69 to counter Kalis’ 68-ball 88*. It took till the last match for UAE to win another game, again against the Netherlands, and this time too, Kalis scored big, a 65-ball 79. Ali was again UAE’s best batter, scoring a 28-ball 37. Ali is clearly destined for good things, and UAE must find a way to get the others – Esha Oza, especially – to perform around Ali.

Areas to improve
The batting needs to go up by leaps and bounds. When Ali fails, UAE don’t score nearly enough, as evidenced by their totals of 83 against Papua New Guinea, 39 against Bangladesh and 50 against Thailand. The bowlers can’t do much if the batters don’t give them much to play with.

Rising starSubha Srinivasan: While Ali was UAE’s standout performer, and Oza is being talked about as the next big thing, Srinivasan, the left-arm pacer, held her own throughout the tournament. She picked up seven wickets in five outings at a reasonable economy rate of 4.72. She was especially good in the game against PNG, scoring 22 and then returning 3/13.