Scintillating Scotland lit up the tournament

It was the best game of the Cricket World Cup Qualifier by a huge margin as two European teams, two arch-rivals Scotland and Ireland collided at the Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo. The match saw-sawed one way and the other from the first ball to the last in the 50-over encounter. 

It was only apt that the game ended on the last ball with Scotland chasing down 286 with a wicket in hand. It was Scotland’s first win and came in their opening game of the tournament. 

Ireland captain Andrew Balbirnie will be worried as his team might end up not qualifying for the super six. They have lost back-to-back games against Oman and Scotland. In their remaining two games, they play Sri Lanka and UAE. 

The chase went nowhere for the Scots early on

Chasing 286, Scotland lost experienced wicketkeeper batter Matthew Cross with the team score at six. Mark Adair removed him. Brandon McMullen and Christopher McBride put on a 50-run stand together before wickets started to fall at regular intervals. From 90/2, Scotland were suddenly 122/6 with all their main batters back in the hut. 

The Michael Leask show

Leask, the right-arm off-spinner landed at the crease when Richie Berrington was bowled by Joshua Little.  Soon the sixth wicket fell when Tom Mackintosh was caught by Harry Tector off the bowling of Curtis Campher and Chris Greaves joined Leask in the middle.

The duo added 50 for the second wicket and gave hope to the Scottish fans. Even as Greaves departed, Leask continued to find boundaries. He was helped brilliantly by Mark Watt. The left-handed spinner Watt hit 47 in the 82-run partnership, letting Leask settle in. After reaching his sixth ODI fifty in 45 balls in his 62nd game, Leask started to loosen up. 

Needing 44 from the last four overs, Leask hit whisked Little for 22 in the 45th over and brought the target down to 22 from 18. There was a quiet over from Mark Adair in the 48th and four quiet balls from Little in the 49th with the target increasing to 13 from eight balls. But Leask hit a four off the fifth ball and took a single to keep strike with eight needed off the last six balls. 

A fumble on the first ball from Tector at long-on resulted in a four for Leask and he took a single next ball. The target was now three from four but Adair got the wicket of Safiyaan Sharif and pushed it to 3 from two with number 11 at the crease. 

Leask was intelligent enough to run on the second last ball, knowing very well that a Scoituish win was only possible with him on the crease at the last ball. A lucky undercut got him a boundary behind the stumps and a victory for Scotland that will be cherished for times to come. 

McMullen blows away the Ireland top order

Earlier in the day, after being asked to bat first, Ireland lost its first three wickets with only 17 runs on the board, all three falling to McMullen. Harry Tector fell to Watt and the men from Ireland were 33/4 in only the ninth over. Andy McBrine tried to take the game along, but Christopher McBride had other ideas as he got the left-hander out to give Irland its fifth blow at 70 in the 19th over. 

Campher leads the great Irish recovery 

Curtios Capmher, the hat-trick man from the 2021 T20 World Cup was in the team and he knows how to make it big. After the fall of McBrine, Campher partnered with George Dockrell. The duo added 136 for the sixth wicket with Dockrell hitting 67 before departing. The South Africa-born all-rounder, Capher though carried on his onslaught to hit his maiden ODI century. It was his 120 that got Ireland from 70/5 to 286/8. 

Oman register easy win against UAE

In another game, which took place at the Bulawayo Athletic Club in Bulawayo, Oman registered an easy five-wicket win in an all-West Asian affair against the United Arab Emirates. Opting to bowl first, Oman spinners rattled UAE and restricted them to 227/8. Jay Odedra, the Saurashtra-born Omani off-spinner was the pick of the bowlers, ending the game with figures of 3/31 in his seven overs. 

Chasing the target, Oman lost its openers quickly, but Aaqib Ilyas and Shoaib Khan recovered the innings with a 100-run stand. Again two more wickets fell quickly with Ilyas (53) and skipper Zeeshan Maqsood departing in quick succession. But Shoaib stitched yet another partnership of 76 runs with Mohammad Nadeem before the latter got out. Ayaan Khan then came in and finished the job quickly with an unbeaten 36-ball 41. Shoaib remained unbeaten on 52.