MI Emirates will take on Sharjah Warriors in the 2nd league match of the International League T20 at the Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi. This is the first match of the tournament for both sides, and they would want to start the tournament on a brilliant note.
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The duo of DJ Bravo and Kieron Pollard is reunited at the MI Emirates, and it will be fun to watch them together. Andre Fletcher and Nicholas Pooran will add the Caribbean flavour in batting, whereas they have experienced players like Trent Boult and Imran Tahir in the bowling lineup.
Sharjah Warriors are led by Moeen Ali, and they have some T20 specialists in their ranks. The batting trio of Evin Lewis, Dawid Malan and Rahmanullah Gurbaz looks deadly at the top, whereas they have options of Mohammad Nabi and Chris Woakes as all-rounders. This side also looks deadly on paper.
Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium pitch report today match
The Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi is one of the premium cricketing venues in the world, and it has hosted a lot of T20 matches. Recently, the Abu Dhabi T10 League was played here, and that tournament is made for hitting sixes, so the pitches in that tournament were absolutely flat.
However, this has been a really competitive track when it comes to the T20 matches. Like any other subcontinent track, this is also a very flat track with almost no help for the bowlers. As the match will go on, the spinners will come into play here. The average 1st innings T20 score at this ground is 162 runs.
This is the first match of the tournament here, so it will be a fresh wicket, and the batters will love their time out there in the middle. The boundaries are also not huge here, so we can expect a high-scoring encounter. Considering the dew factor, both captains may opt to chase upon winning the toss.
