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UAE set daunting task for victory

 The UAE face a daunting task after being set a target of 382 by Hong Kong to win the four-day ICC Intercontinental Cup encounter at the ICC Academy, here.
At the end of the third day's play, UAE were five without loss with Amjad Ali (1) and Asif Iqbal (3). On Saturday, the UAE batsmen will have to come up with something special as they chase another 377 runs with all their 10 wickets in hand after their bowlers had done the job earlier in the day.
Resuming the third day at the overnight score of 82-4, UAE were skittled out for 181 in 92.2 overs with Swapnil Patil being the top scorer with a gutsy 75 off 160 balls which contained seven hits to the fence. Swapnil got valuable support from Usman Mushtaq who made 45 and faced 194 balls for his five boundaries.
Swapnil and Mushtaq had started on a bright note and took the score to 133 when Hong Kong finally found the breakthrough. Anshuman Rath, who was the pick of the Hong Kong bowlers, trapped Mushtaq in front of the wicket to spark a collapse. Hong Kong bowlers took little time to run through the rest of the batting with only Swapnil providing some resistance as UAE were finally bowled out for 181.
UAE came back strongly in the latter part of the session to dismiss Hong Kong for 184 despite a gritty 73 from Babar Hayat. Raja Adeel tasted immediate success by sending opener Kinchit Shah (4) back to the pavilion at the score of 5. After a brief recovery from Anshuman and Hayat, UAE found their second success at the score of 59 with Anshuman becoming a victim of Nasir Aziz.
Thereafter Hayat teamed up with Nizakat Khan (18) and Jamie Atkinson (30) to take the score past the 100 mark. Once Atkinson was dismissed, UAE bowlers ran through the lower order with Raza being the wrecker-in-chief with figures of 5-61. Aziz captured four wickets as Hong Kong were dismissed on 184 in the 52nd over to set UAE a target of 382 runs.
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