{"id":417106,"date":"2026-02-10T01:18:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T01:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/417106\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T01:18:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T01:18:22","slug":"uae-send-muhammad-zohaib-home-for-disciplinary-reasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/417106\/","title":{"rendered":"UAE send Muhammad Zohaib home for disciplinary reasons"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the eve of their first match of T20 World Cup 2026<\/a>, UAE<\/a> have sent batter Muhammad Zohaib<\/a> back home for “disciplinary reasons”. In a statement issued on Monday, the Emirates Cricket Board said “more details will be provided in due course.”<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, UAE are set to face New Zealand in Chennai<\/a> for their first World Cup game since 2022. The loss of one of their top-order batters puts more pressure on a line-up that was bowled out for 81 in its most recent outing – a warm-up game<\/a> against Italy on Friday.<\/p>\n

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Zohaib batted at No. 9 in that game. In UAE’s previous warm-up game, against Nepal<\/a>, he scored a 26-ball 19 at No. 3. UAE have already settled on 21-year-old Aryansh Sharma to partner their captain Muhammad Waseem<\/a> at the top of the order.<\/p>\n

Zohaib made his debut for UAE in May 2025. He’s played 16 T20Is and scored 303 runs at an average of 20.20 and a strike rate of 103.76.<\/p>\n

Waseem spoke about UAE’s preparation and their unity – given the squad is made up of both Indian- and Pakistani-origin players – in the lead-up to the New Zealand match. He said the players would take confidence from UAE’s win over New Zealand in a T20I in Dubai<\/a> in 2023.<\/p>\n

“Our strategy is very simple,” Waseem said. “We beat them before in UAE but this time it’s a different venue, different tournament, different ground, and different game also. So we came with another plan right now. So yes, they are a good team and have experience also. But we work very well and we have prepared ourselves like a champion team. We will try to play good cricket against them tomorrow”<\/p>\n

About his squad, Waseem said, “there is no India-Pakistan. We are playing for the UAE and we are always treating ourselves like a family. We are living like a family, friends. We are spending time together, eating together. There is no Indian-Pakistani in the UAE team to be honest.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the eve of their first match of T20 World Cup 2026, UAE have sent batter Muhammad Zohaib…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-417106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}