Batting catastrophe heaps problems on the Scots
Canada, 252 for seven, defeated Scotland, 104 all out, by 148 runs, with 19 overs to spare.
Ryan Watson won the toss for the first time in this tournament and, not surprisingly, invited the Canadians to bat first. But his team lost the match with a disastrous second innings batting display that never began to threaten a run chase that was certainly demanding but not beyond Scotland’s reach.
As the full horror of that second innings unfolded before the knots of spectators around the ground, it was natural to want to analyse the reasons. The details are clear from the scorecard, but it helps to have seen what happened before passing judgement.
First things first, though. The Willowmoore Park venue at Benoni has a reputation for favouring seam bowling, particularly in the first hour of so of the morning’s play. That’s why Scotland omitted all their spinners (except the captain, of course) and went into the game with five seamers.
John Blain and Dewald Nel duly took the new ball, and beat the bat frequently, getting movement off the seam, some swing and additional bounce that left the legendary Canadian opener John Davison missing 19 of the first 25 balls he received, without a suggestion that he might find an edge. The other five deliveries were despatched for 22, as the Canadians got off to a five-an-over start.
After 11 overs had gone for 58, Watson brought Craig Wright on, with immediate success. Two wickets in his first over accounted for Barnett - stumped - and Cheema, lbw. Blain’s next over saw Davison leave the field with a severe limp after pulling his calf muscle.
A couple of catches had slipped through fielders’ hands up to this point, but presently Dewald Nel took a good running catch on the 30-yard circle at mid-off to give Wright (and Scotland) a third wicket, with the score on 73 in the 18th over, and Wright finished with excellent figures of 10-4-23-3. The Scots were doing ok.
It was another 18 overs before the next wicket fell, though, Dhaniram bowled when swinging wildly at a Stander delivery, by which time the score had progressed to 154-4. Still ok.
By this time, however, the Canadian captain and wicket-keeper, Ashish Bagai, had settled in well and was beginning to show just what a destructive batsman he can be. And when Jyoti was out, caught behind off Calum MacLeod, Colin Smith standing up, Davison re-entered the arena with a runner.
Fortunately, he didn’t last much more than an over, gliding a catch to Blain at third man to give Stander his second wicket with the score at 208 for six in the 46th. Still ok.
But the last four overs escaped the Scots’ control, with 44 runs added, although a great catch by Stander at mid-on got rid of Bagai, the top scorer, for 87. At this point, although the target set was higher than it might have been, there was no reason to believe the Scots could not match it.
How wrong can you be!
Amazingly, since the unrelenting sun had been shining on Benoni since 7am, there seemed to be even more seam, swing and bounce for the Canadian pace bowlers than there had been for the Scots.
Watson started off with clear intent to banish his poor form to history, and he put away a couple of great boundary shots before lofting a legside ball from Bhatti straight down the throat of deep square leg, for 14. But Gavin Hamilton and Kyle Coetzer were already back in the pavilion, both caught behind off the same bowler.
At this point, it needed some serious concentration. But the carnage continued, with Poonia edging Osinde to veteran Canadian Ian Bilcliffe at first slip, and Neil McCallum doing much the same.
With Colin Smith observing the comings and goings at the other end in disbelief, the Scots had now lost half their wickets in the space of five overs, the score on just 33 runs. All but one of the wickets were caught by the wicket-keeper or first slip.
Jan Stander joined Smith to try to steady the ship, but after looking good for eight overs he fished at another swinging ball and Bagai made no mistake once again.
Craig Wright, who had left the field with a recurrence of his hip problems after completing his bowling spell, emerged with a runner. Ten balls later, he was run out before he could really get going.
John Blain got his head down for nine overs before becoming Man-of-the-Match Bagai’s fourth victim, with a sharp catch standing up. MacLeod came and went, falling lbw. And Nel was the not out batsman as the dazed Smith finally ran out of luck, playing on to be the last man out, having scored 43 of Scotland‘s total of 104.
There were still 19 overs to spare. How Watson must have wished he’d lost the toss! But it meant that Scotland would only carry two points through to the Super Eight stage, needing probably three wins from their four matches to finish as a top four qualifier.
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Report by Mike Stanger
