Bermuda 122, UAE 124-3

Janeiro Tucker?s men suffered their second consecutive defeat at the hands of the United Arab Emirates Select yesterday at the Dubai Cricket Council Ground.

The seven-wicket defeat followed hard on the heels of Monday?s 46-run loss in Sharjah ? results which have placed the poor performances of the Island?s top-order batsman under the spotlight once again.

What made Bermuda?s paltry 122 all out even more disappointing was that the toss was won by Tucker, who elected to bat under clear skies and on a pitch which everybody felt harboured few demons.

But speaking from the team hotel last night, the stand-in skipper admitted that both he and Logie completely misread the surface, which according to Tucker produced seriously uneven bounce from the outset.

Stephen Outerbridge (6), Dean Minors (2), Saleem Mukuddem (2) and Irving Romaine (3) were all knocked over by UAE?s new-ball partnership of Syed Fawad and Shoaib Sarwar ? the latter recording Man-of-the-Match figures of four for 21 off his ten overs.

But Tucker insisted yesterday that it was the pitch that had more to do with the spectacular failure of the upper order, rather than the skill of the bowlers who he described as ?nothing out of the ordinary?.

?When we first saw the wicket we thought it looked good and it would be a straight-forward win the toss and bat sort of situation,? he said.

?Even the coach was of the opinion that we should bat.

?But when we got out there it turned out to be extremely difficult. The ball was keeping so low at times that it was basically rolling along the ground and both Stephen and Saleem got balls they could do nothing about.

?But as the day went on the bounce became more reliable and was much easier to play on when they were batting. It just shows you the value of knowing the conditions.?

In partnership with Jekon Edness, who made an appropriately patient 15 in 39 balls, Tucker dug in at number five in the order, playing forward as often as he could to counteract the low bounce and looking to play straight back down the ground.

His 24 lasted for 52 balls and contained only two boundaries before he was bowled by Ali Aosaf.

With wickets tumbling around him, Jacobi Robinson (20) applied the long hand soon after to take Bermuda?s score past the 100 mark.

?Even though we only had 122, we felt like we could defend it,? Tucker said.

?We told ourselves that it is always difficult chasing small totals and if the pitch was as difficult as it was when we were batting on it, we knew we had a chance if we put the ball in the right place.?

But the day went from bad to worse for Bermuda in the field, as it soon became clear that the pitch was not misbehaving as it had done in the morning.

Mukuddem and Kevin Hurdle had ripped the guts out of the UAE top order the day before, but with the latter putting his feet up for the day, it was left to the South African and the inexperienced Stefan Kelly to lead the assault.

The early wickets so desperately required were not forthcoming, however, as UAE?s opening pair of Anjad Javed and Arshad Ali put on 33 for the first wicket.

Tucker swapped his bowlers around regularly in search of inspiration, using seven in total.

But Kelly, with three for 33 in a lively seven over spell, was the only one capable of breaking through.

Ali, who was dropped on 15 by Lionel Cann, eased his side to victory with 35 not out off 81 balls while Naeemuddin was with him at the end on 32 not out.

Tucker, meanwhile, insisted that the squad were unfazed by the back-to-back defeats and were determined to come good for the three remaining games.

?At this stage the coach is still trying people out in different positions and this is our first bit of cricket for a while,? he said.

?We know what the problems are and we know that we have to bat better in the next few games if we are going to be competitive.

?But there are quite a few new guys in this side and it was always going to take a while to bed down. We?re looking forward to doing better in the day/night games.?

The 14-strong squad have a rest day today before returning to Sharjah tomorrow and Friday for day/night matches against what are expected to be much stronger UAE sides.

Bermuda?s champion spinner Dwayne Leverock, who has sat out the first two games to give his injured ankle maximum recovery time, is expected to take the field in both of these.