India-born off spinner Simi Singh wrecks UAE to help Ireland draw the ODI series

 By K.R. Nayar

Simi Singh from Punjab (India) not only destroyed UAE’s batting with a deadly five wicket spell but also cracked an unbeaten half century to help Ireland win the fourth ODI and draw the series 1-1

Off spinner Simi Singh in action against the UAE 

Simi Singh, hailing from Bathalana, a small village in Punjab, (India), representing Ireland, destroyed UAE hopes of winning a One Day International series at the Abu Dhabi Zayed Cricket Stadium.  Singh produced a spectacular allround performance in the fourth and final match of the One Day International series on Monday. 

UAE had won the first match of this series, but the next two matches from this series had to cancelled owing to three players from the host team being tested positive for Coronavirus.

Singh cracked an unbeaten 54 to help Ireland post a challenging 228 for 6, and he then bowled out UAE for 116 runs with a dream spell of ten overs, four maiden, ten runs and five wickets.

 Singh was playing his first match of this series since he was not included in the playing eleven for the first ODI match that Ireland lost by six wickets on January 8th. 

Simi Singh... allround show

In the fourth ODI match, UAE won the toss and elected to field. UAE pacer Zahoor Khan bowled brilliantly to remove Ireland’s star batsman and opener Paul Stirling for 4 and captain Andy Balbirnie for 3. When Kaushik Daud removed opener Kevin O’Brien too, Ireland were struggling with their score reading three wickets down for 10 runs. 

 Ireland wicketkeeper Lorcan Tucker (42) and Harry Tector (33) lifted their team out of trouble but UAE skipper Ahmed Raza removed both of them. Then through an unbeaten 54 off 84 balls with two fours and two sixes, Singh, along with Curtis Campher (56) took Ireland from 99 for 5 to a respectable total.

 UAE began their chase well with their openers Zawar Farid  (28) and Vriitya Anand (18) putting on 46 runs in 9.3 overs before Singh removed both of them. He also went on to dismiss CP Rizwan and Mohammad Usman. Both these batsmen had hit centuries in the first ODI match. When Singh dismissed Basil Hameed, he reduced UAE to 64 for 5. UAE could not recover from his deadly spell and were all out for 116 in 36 overs.

Thirty-three-year-old Singh was one of the nineteen players to be awarded a central contract by Cricket Ireland last year. He has played 21 ODIs and bagged 23 wickets, in addition to 21 wickets from 24 T20 Internationals.