Four Runs Short and Three Wins Clear: Adeeb Usmani's 96 Not Out Seals the UAE's Sweep in Kuala Lumpur

There is a particular disappointment in finishing on 96 not out, and Adeeb Usmani will have felt it walking off at Bayuemas Oval on Thursday. He had faced 53 balls, hit five fours and six sixes, and run out of deliveries four short of a hundred — and he had done it while his side put 216 on the board and closed out a 3-0 series sweep.

The United Arab Emirates won by 59 runs. It was their third win in four days against Malaysia, and the most emphatic of them: the first two were chases completed with overs to spare, this one a demonstration of what they can do when asked to bat first.

Malaysia, who put them in, will feel they got the toss decision wrong. They will also know that on the evidence of three matches, the toss was not the problem.

Alishan Sharafu and Adeeb Usmani put on 111 in 10.1 overs, and it was Sharafu who did the early damage — 58 from 33 with five sixes, an innings of pure aggression that took the required tempo out of Malaysia's hands before the field had properly spread.

Usmani's was the slower burn and the more complete innings. He was still there twenty overs later, having added a further stand of 62 with Sohaib Khan and then watched Akshdeep Nath hit 23 not out from eight balls at the death. The UAE scored 36 from their last 14 deliveries.

Malaysia's bowling was not short of effort. Virandeep Singh and Syed Aziz each took a wicket, as did Azhar. Azri Azhar was the most economical at nine an over. But Pavandeep Singh conceded 40 from three and Aziz 45 from four. But the attack had no dot-ball option once Sharafu got going, and 216 was the consequence.

Seventeen for two in 2.5 overs is a bad start when chasing 217; it is close to terminal. Muhammad Haziq Aiman went for a two-ball duck and Aslam Khan followed for 14.

What happened next was, on its own terms, admirable. Syed Aziz and Virandeep Singh put on 121 for the third wicket and batted through to the seventeenth over. Virandeep finished unbeaten on 73 from 52 with eight fours; Aziz made 57 from 46. Malaysia's innings, having begun in ruins, ended at 157 for 5 with a respectable look to it.

The trouble is that a 121-run stand occupying fourteen overs at a shade under nine an over is not a chase — it is damage limitation dressed as one. The required rate when the stand began was already above eleven and it never came down. Khuzaima Tanveer's 4-1-29-3 was the spell that ensured it: a maiden in a T20 chase of 217 is close to a decisive act on its own.

Bayuemas Oval played well for batting across all three matches of this series, and this was the best of the three: 373 runs for eight wickets in forty overs, with no obvious assistance for seam or spin and a fast outfield.

The one bowler who consistently found something was Tanveer, whose control of length rather than movement produced the only maiden of the match. On surfaces like this the difference between attacks is not pace or turn — it is who can bowl six balls in the right place under pressure.

We previewed the second T20I of this series but not the third. In that preview we wrote that “the UAE are the favourites on the basis of depth and experience,” while adding the caveat that Malaysia's spinners on a Bayuemas surface could restrict even the UAE's batting. The first half of that was right three times over. The second half was not: Malaysia's spin did not restrict anybody, and the UAE's 216 was made on a surface that gave the slower bowlers nothing at all. We also did not name Adeeb Usmani as a player to watch, and on the evidence of this week we should have.

A 3-0 sweep, achieved by six wickets, seven wickets and 59 runs. The UAE's tour of Malaysia ends with the visitors having controlled every phase of every match, and with a top order — Sharafu, Usmani, Sohaib Khan — that looks genuinely settled ahead of their next assignments. Usmani's 96 not out is the kind of innings a player builds a place on.

For Malaysia, the 121-run stand between Aziz and Virandeep Singh is the thing to keep. Both made half-centuries against an attack that had bowled them out cheaply twice; Virandeep's 73 not out was Malaysia's highest individual score of the match by some distance. What the side needs is a top order that does not leave its two best batters with a rebuild to do every time, and a bowling attack with someone capable of what Tanveer did.