Yesterday in T20I match in UAE Pakistan defeated United Arab Emirates by 31 runs. Pakistan batted first and scored 171 runs with Fakhar Zaman making impressive 77 runs. In return UAE could only manage 140 runs mainly due to Pakistan strong bowling especially from Abrar Ahmed who took four key wickets. This win was very important for Pakistan as it helped them bounce back from recent loss to Afghanistan and secured their spot in final against them. And I hope they will beat Afghanistan in Final.
This was more or less what I expected. United Arab Emirates is simply not at the same level as other associate nations. First of all, they don't have any native (citizen) players in their squad. Therefore they import players from the subcontinent on a temporary basis. Very few of these players remain for more than 3-4 years. So there is no team bonding as such, and this has a negative impact on their performance. They should take initiatives to spread cricket among the citizen population, else they will remain on the fringes.