Canada were humbled by South Africa. Their lack of exposure was clearly visible - conceded 213 and then could muster only 156 runs with the bat in reply. UAE, meanwhile, fared a lot better with the bat. They registered their highest T20 WC total - 173 - thanks to fifties from Muhammad Waseem and Alishan Sharafu - but their bowlers couldn't exert any sort of pressure as the New Zealand openers hunted down the target with 28 balls to spare. These two teams have faced only once in this format - back in 2019 - and UAE emerged victorious on that occasion. UAE come into this match as slight favourites as they have more experience of playing against Full Member nations. But Canada will think that this is their best chance to get a win in this competition.
Pitch Report | Nick Knight and Carlos Brathwaite: "Second game on this surface. Covered the game last night - 209 for 9 India batting first. And actually both captains afterwards at the presentation said the ball stuck a little bit in the surface. But it looks a good surface. Perhaps a little on the dry side. Just got to tell you, the groundsmen, they put the hessian matting on, early part of the morning into the afternoon. So maybe they're a bit concerned it's a bit dry. Either way, it still looks a good surface. Shoutout to the groundsmen because when we look here in and around the crease area, you can't tell that a game was played here last night. Fantastic work, so kudos to the gentlemen. And if we look beyond the crease and more so to the playing area, there's a nice covering of grass and it's not green anymore. So you would think it's devoid of moisture and it should hold it together a bit. Once again in the tournament, the mantra will be spin to win."
Muhammad Waseem: Second game on the same wicket, we were also looking for the batting but I think we need to restrict them under low total. No pressure to be honest. Just we have to play the game like we played before also. We'll play with the ball and with the bat and against the opposition, that's it. We are going with the two changes. Dhruv and one other guy is not playing. So Farooq and Jawad is back.
Dilpreet Bajwa: We are going to bat first. We both are associated teams so just want to bat first and want to put pressure of chase on them. It's a very good wicket, we saw yesterday's game and India scored very well. I think it's a batting weekend. As I said, pressure is going to be there for the chase though. (On captaining Canada) Yeah it's been good. Playing South Africa is a good experience for me as a captain and thanks to the board for choosing me as a captain and I'm enjoying it. We're going to play the same team that we played against South Africa and hopefully it will work today.
A competitive duel, two one-sided encounters, one tied game that needed two Super Overs to decide the winner. That's been the story of Group D so far. Hello everyone to today's second game. It's the clash between two sides that suffered big losses - Canada vs UAE. Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi is the battleground and it promises to be a close game.
Head to head: Canada and the UAE have played against each other only once in T20Is. This was during the T20 World Cup qualifiers in 2019 when the UAE won by 14 runs.
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