Scotland lose out to Nepal in low-scoring T20
T20 Tri-Series, GlasgowScotland 97 (19.4): Leask 46, Cross 15; Lamichhane 4-11Nepal 98-8 (19.5) : Bhurtel 30, Airee 14; Sharif 2-13Nepal win by two wicketsScorecard
Scotland fell short in their fightback against Nepal, as a single from the penultimate ball gave the tourists victory a low-scoring T20 Tri-Series match Glasgow.After being put into bat in overcast and breezy conditions at Clydesdale, hosting its third match of the week, Scotland crumbled as Nepal wreaked havoc with the ball.Mark Watt was removed with just the fifth delivery of the afternoon by Dipendra Singh Airee and by the end of the fifth over the Scots were five down.After Michael Leask, who ended with 46, and captain Matthew Cross helped put up a brief resistance, Sandeep Lamichhane cleaned up the lower order by taking four wickets for just 11 runs to leave Nepal needing just 98 to win.However, despite looking like they would reach the winning line with plenty to spare, disciplined bowling from Scotland took another dramatic match right to the end.Safyaan Sharif had Kiran Thagunna caught in the final over as Nepal went eight down while needing just a single from the final two balls.But they composed themselves to get it with the penultimate delivery as Lamichhane added to his bowling heroics by grabbing the winning run.Scotland next face the Netherlands on Wednesday before finishing their series against Nepal on Friday as they warm up for next month's T20 World Cup qualifiers."It was a game of two halves," Scotland captain Cross told BBC Scotland."We didn't bat very well to be honest. I think the first five or six overs being five wickets down is tough to come back from."Having said that, I think we put in a decent effort to make the game go as close to the wire as we could. So I'm proud of the performance in the second half."Losing five wickets in the powerplay, you don't win many games like that. The pitch was trickier but we expect more of ourselves to build a score when it is like that."
Having defeated the Netherlands by 39 runs in their opening match of the series, the Scots ought to have been in a buoyant mood on home soil.But from the start it was Nepal, who lost to the Dutch on Monday after an unprecedented third super over, who were inspired in front of a raucous band of fans on Glasgow's sunny south side.After Watt trudged to the pavilion before the end of the first over, he was quickly joined by George Munsey who spooned one to Airee off the bowling of Karan KC.Finlay McCreath and Brandon McMullen were also caught playing loosely, while Liam Naylor was run out as Scotland toiled to 32-5 after the powerplay.Cross and Leask shared 39 but Scotland's respite was short-lived thanks to Lamichhane.After bowling Cross and Christopher McBride in consecutive deliveries, he later trapped Safyaan Sharif lbw before Jack Jarvis became the 24-yer-old's fourth victim as he departed for a duck.Leask was the final man to fall at the hand of Airee as he tried to blast his way to 50 in the final few balls.In reply Nepal hit 31 for the loss of two wickets in their powerplay, before better bowling from Scotland and a soggy pitch slowed the scoring.Once opener Kushal Bhurtel was removed for 30 in the 13th over, things started to slowly turn in Scotland's favour.Leask added to his batting resistance with two wickets, including a brilliant catch from his own delivery to dismiss Basir Ahamad.And though Sharif looked like he could win it for Scotland after Thagunna walked, ultimately Doug Watson's side had given themselves too much to do.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
18 minutes ago
- BBC News
Scotland end T20 series with win over Nepal
T20 Tri-Series, GlasgowScotland 193-5: Munsey 78, McMullen 42; Bhurtel 2-20Nepal 159 : Singh 43*, Airee 34; Greaves 3-27Scotland win by 34 runsScorecard Scotland signed off the T20 Tri-Series with a comfortable 34-run victory over Nepal to move into next month's World Cup qualifiers in more confident Munsey starred with the bat, whacking 78 from 39 balls to help the Scots set an imposing target of 194 at a sweltering Clydesdale in who had enjoyed two wins from their three matches in the series with Scotland and the Netherlands, never really looked like chasing who hit an associate-record 191 in a recent ODI against the Dutch, resumed that form as he managed six sixes before being caught chasing another boundary."Everyone mucked in and got the job done," Munsey told BBC Scotland."I really enjoy getting going when I can especially in front of a home crowd. I just love hitting sixes."I've just got to get myself in and be smart and enjoy the moment, thankfully it happened today."When Munsey departed he and Brandon McMullen had steered Scotland to 134-2, but when McMullen was bowled by Sandeep Lamichhane four balls later Doug Watson's side briefly struggled as Finlay McCreath and Richie Berrington were caught before reaching double figures. But Matthew Cross and and Michael Leask steadied the ship and shared an unbeaten partnership of 48 to see Scotland close to 200 chase started in erratic fashion after Kushal Bhurtel's ramp shot from McMullen's delivery in the first over was smartly taken by Finlay McCreath on the the time captain Rohit Paudel chipped one from Mark Watt to Chris Greaves, the tourists were 82-5 in the 11th Singh Airee lead the fightback with an effective 34 from 33 balls, but up stepped Greaves to bowl him, and then Lamichhane in consecutive deliveries to leave Nepal 117-8 and their hopes of victory looking grabbed his third of the day when he had Rijan Dhakal caught, and despite Rupesh Singh lasting until the end with a haul of 43, Nepal's resistance ended when Lalit Rajbanshi was run will now look to next month's qualifiers in the Netherlands when they face the Dutch, Italy, Jersey, and Guernsey for a place at the World Cup in India and Sri Lanka next ended with two wins and two losses in the three-way series, as did Nepal and the Netherlands."The key takeaways for me is the squad is growing now," head coach Watson told BBC Scotland. "We have 15 guys here who played with their heart on their sleeve for Scotland. They're developing nicely but it's a young group. "We've had some really tough and close games which bodes well for the future."
The Sun
35 minutes ago
- The Sun
‘I don't need to somehow remain relevant' – Andy Murray reveals he is set to snub ‘easy' Wimbledon TV punditry gig
ANDY MURRAY is loath to step into TV punditry work just yet – as he does not want to annoy Jack Draper with his words. Muzza, 38, hated it when he was playing and former British tennis stars, who had nowhere near his same level of ability or talent, gave him advice. 2 2 Now retired and at a loose end following the dissolution of his coaching gig with 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic, the Scotsman could earn decent money working for the BBC. But the two-time Wimbledon singles champion is conscious of appearing in front of millions and saying something that current British No 1 Draper, 23, disagrees with. Asked by GQ magazine if he feels the need to stay in the public eye, Murray replied: 'I'm not thinking daily that I need to tweet something or somehow remain relevant. 'That's why I'm much more interested in the idea of coaching because I feel like I'd actually really be helping someone. 'Whereas with punditry, it can be harmful. If I go and work at, let's say Wimbledon, you start getting asked questions about British players like Jack Draper. 'I know when the British ex–tennis players would talk about my tennis and what I should be doing. 'Because you respect them, you listen to what they're saying – but it's not always the same as what your coach is telling you. 'What the pundits are saying could be wrong. They're not right all the time, and when you're young, it's quite conflicting. 'So I'd be more inclined to do coaching, because I think punditry is quite an easy gig. 'You can just throw stuff out there. "People love it if it's a bit controversial, but you don't actually have any skin in the game.' BBC's Wimbledon TV comms team will be revealed on Monday.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Shubman Gill glides India into commanding position with regal coronation
For a man who moves so slowly, Shubman Gill can fit a lot into a split second. Gill is one of those rare athletes who works in a different rhythm to the rest of us, so that even when a ball's coming down at 90mph he seems to be able to take a beat to whistle a bar of Jim Croce's Time in a Bottle while he thinks about what he's going to order for dinner that evening, finally decides how to meet this latest delivery and then, at the last possible moment, follows through. He is, as any number of players and coaches say, someone you only need to see hit one shot to know exactly how good he is. England, unfortunately for them, got to watch a lot more than one on the first day of the opening Test. In style, Gill is a throwback batter. He plays the game with patrician disdain, waiting for the ball like it's his butler, then, sending it scurrying away with a casual flick of his wrist, to fetch him a cold drink from somewhere the other side of the covers. It's all done with the bare minimum of apparent effort, he pulls his bat up shy when he drives, and stops halfway through his pull shot. But in substance he is the very model of a modern middle order cricketer. He had scored more centuries in T20 cricket than he had in Test matches, and still has a higher top score in the shorter format. Just. He was in many ways, still unfulfilled as a Test match batter when India decided to make him their new captain. He'd scored five centuries, but they were all made in the subcontinent, (four in India, one in Bangladesh) and his top-score elsewhere was a 91 he made in Brisbane four years ago. Coming into this Test, it was the only score of more than 50 he'd made across tours of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, England and the West Indies. His nickname, Prince, suits him for lots of reasons, not least that it felt like his defining achievements are all ahead of him. The hundred he made here was the first of them. Gill is the youngest man to captain India since Sachin Tendulkar got the job in 1996. If he carries on in the way he played on the first day at Headingley, he will, unlike Tendulkar, have it for a long while yet. It helped that England made the hardest decision of the day for him. Judging a toss before the end of the match is like counting a chicken before it's hatched, or a damning pitch before both teams have had a bat. Generally it pays to wait before you make your mind up. But after just half an hour, it was hard to avoid the creeping feeling that England had got it wrong here. Gill said he would have done the same thing in Ben Stokes's position. It turned out to be good for him that he didn't get the opportunity. England may yet be vindicated, there have been a lot of good fourth-innings scores at Headingley in recent years, and the last six Tests here have all been won by the team bowling first, but the first day's play was hot work for bowlers, and the wickets were hard-earned. By midway through the morning session, Chris Woakes and Brydon Carse both had a go from either end, Josh Tongue tried both sides of the wicket. It already felt like Stokes had turned out his pockets searching for England's first wicket. Sign up to The Spin Subscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers' thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week's action after newsletter promotion It was one of those mornings when the bowling team first measures success in edges and almosts, clapping the balls that whizz past slips, or fizz over the gully, then, when the batsmen are starting to middle it, celebrating the shots you insist you want the batter to be playing, like the drives that might have been sliced behind if they hadn't disappeared through cover for four. England eventually got one, then two, wickets, in the run-up to lunch. So it fell to Gill, batting at No 4, to reassert control of the innings. He was waiting for England when they came back on to the field, having spent most of the break patting back throwdowns from a couple of the squad players. He carried on that way through the rest of the day, Carse, who goes about his bowling like the batter is a stray nail which needs to be hammered back into the crease, troubled him some. But the rest of England's attack hardly mustered a chance worth appealing for between them. So Gill moved imperiously to his hundred, as unruffled, and regal, as Cleopatra along the Nile, the only blemishes in his innings were the one bungled single on 97, and the pair of black socks peeping out from beneath the hems of his white trousers.
