The United Arab Emirates' Amjad Javed believes he and his team-mates can surprise a stuttering Pakistan at the Cricket World Cup on Wednesday.

Only taking part in the finals for a second time, the UAE have lost all three of their Pool B encounters so far, suffering narrow defeats to Zimbabwe and Ireland before a nine-wicket thrashing at the hands of reigning champions India.

Pakistan have fared only slightly better, with Sunday's 20-run success over Zimbabwe getting them off the mark following losses to India and West Indies.

"If you see our first two games, we almost upset Ireland and Zimbabwe, so definitely, yes [we can win against Pakistan]," said Javed. "We are here to upset some good teams.

"This World Cup will give associate teams more exposure. As you have seen, associate teams are performing well: Ireland, Afghanistan, Scotland, the UAE, they all are playing well.

"So definitely this will give them a boost, and after this tournament the ICC [International Cricket Council] might give them some more games against big teams.

"I think apart from the game against India, the last three games which we played, including the warm-up, the fans enjoyed.

"The expectations that they came to watch a good game, they enjoyed, and that's a big motivation for us, that we are pulling some crowd, and the crowd is supporting UAE now."

Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq, meanwhile, believes the win over Zimbabwe will give his side some much-needed momentum as they look to improve their chances of qualification for the quarter-finals.

"A win is always good for the confidence of the team, so everybody is feeling good about this, and looking forward for tomorrow's game," he said.

"It's an open pool. Anything can happen, and every game is important in this pool, no matter who is playing today and who is playing tomorrow and who you are playing against.

"Mainly you could see that all the teams are still interested, and that's really interesting for us, also.

"But we have to focus on just going there, improve our performance and try to win the games, and I think that's the simplest way we have to just think."

Nine of the UAE's squad are Pakistani nationals, and Misbah says the familiarity between the two sides will help each team adopt a clear gameplan.

"We know most of their players," he said. "They've been playing with our players even in Dubai, most of our players played the league games and their domestic games there.

"I think they know our players very well and we know them very well. There will be obvious plans against each other."