By a Staff Reporter
Home team Scotland effortlessly vanquished visitors Nepal by 8 wickets in the ICC World Cup League 2 tri series ODI this evening. The Nepali spectators witnessed a massacre at Titwood Cricket Ground. With this defeat, Nepal will return home with only a single historic victory from the Scotland tour.
Chasing a winning target of 129 runs for victory, Scotland wrapped up the match in 19 overs losing only 2 wickets. Scotland’s opener Kyle Coetzer remained unbeaten scoring 44 runs off 52 balls with 7 fours.
Calum MacLeod left the crease after playing an aggressive innings of 64 runs off 29 balls with 10 fours and 3 sixes. Nepal’s Sandeep Lamichhane and Sompal Kami took 1 wicket each.
Nepal, who lost the toss in Glasgow and offered to bat first, were all out for 128 runs in 34.5 overs. Nepal’s opener Asif Sheikh, who earned the highest run for the team was caught out by wicketkeeper Matthew Cross in the third ball of the 19th over off spinner Mark Watt’s ball.
When Asif left the crease, Nepal was in a situation of 64-3 in 18.3 overs. Nepal lost 3 middle-order batsmen while adding six more runs to the tally which then started to create inconvenience for Nepal. Opener Kushal Bhurtel got out again with an awful performance. Bhurtel got caught out for 3 runs from 16 balls off spinner Mark Watt’s second ball of the sixth over.
Dev Khanal and Vice Captain Rohit Paudel were caught out for 10 runs each by Gavin Main and Callum MacLeod respectively.
Nepal was in vexation after Arif Sheikh was caught out by Mark Watley in the third ball of the 21st over. Subsequently, Dipendra Singh Aire was caught by the wicketkeeper for 7 runs.
Binod Bhandari, who played his first match on the Scotland tour this evening, was dismissed for 13 runs off 21 balls. Karan KC was bowled for 7 runs by Gavin Main. Sandeep Lamichhane was caught out as the last wicket of Nepal for 27 runs off 27 balls.
Scotland’s spinner Hamza Tahir took 4 wickets expending 26 runs in 7.5 overs with 1 maiden. Mark Watt took 3 wickets in 8 overs with 1 maiden giving away 19 runs. Meanwhile, Gavin Main took two wickets.
Nepal lost three matches and won a single match during its Scotland tour. Nepal defeated Scotland by 5 wickets in its first outing against the home side. Nepal lost to Namibia by 40 and 63 runs. Nepal has concluded the tour standing sixth in the points table by collecting 17 points with 8 wins and 11 losses in 20 matches. Along with this, Nepal’s opportunity to qualify directly for the Global One Day World Cup by being in the top three seems to be arduous.
Points table:
Oman is at the top with 44 points from 36 matches with 21 wins and 13 losses. Scotland is second with 34 points from 24 matches with 16 wins and 6 losses. UAE is in third place with 26 points with 12 wins and 8 losses from 22 matches.
America is fourth with 22 points from 24 matches with 11 wins and 12 losses. Namibia is in fifth place with 18 points from 18 matches with 9 wins and 9 losses. Nepal is in sixth place with 17 points with 8 wins and 11 losses in 20 matches. Papua New Guinea is at the bottom with 1 win and 19 losses in 20 matches.
