Vriitya Aravind's bravery in vain after UAE miss out on T20 World Cup to Nepal

Vriitya Aravind opted out of having an X-ray on his injured hand to ensure he played in the UAE’s winner-takes-all fixture against Nepal.

The UAE wicketkeeper was struck on his right hand while batting against Hong Kong in their final group match in Mulpani on Thursday.

Victory in that meant the UAE faced Nepal a day later at the same ground in the semi-final of the T20 World Cup Asia Qualifier.

The winners of that game would qualify to play at next year’s World Cup in the United States and the Caribbean. As such, Aravind did not want to miss out and so did not risk having a scan on the injury, in case it showed a break.

He credited Dr Manish Pardeshi, the UAE physio, for getting him into a fit state to play. Aravind was dosed up on painkillers to enable him to take his place in the starting lineup, and wore a lightweight cast when he was batting.

Despite being limited by the injury, as well as being struck another painful blow on exactly the same place, he struck his highest T20 international score since February 2022.

His heroic 64 went in vain, though, as the UAE eventually lost out by eight wickets to Nepal.

“I don’t like having scans on my fingers because I am used to keeping [wicket] and breaking them,” Aravind said.

“I didn’t want anything playing on my mind before the game. Then I was hit on the same place again.

“I was on a lot of painkillers before the game. I had a long night of recovery [on Thursday] and a lot of credit goes to our physio, who was with me till 12am.

“He was doing stimulations so the swelling could go down. It was always going to be hard for me to keep but we thought if we bowled first I could try to fight through it.”

UAE-Nepal Cricket

He did not take part in fielding practice before the