Scotland lose to Afghanistan, and now face Zimbabwe in an I-Cup 'semi-final'
Mike Stanger ponders the problems of concentration in four-day cricket after a brave effort to achieve a draw from Scotland's I-Cup match with Afghanistan...
The last day of the four-day ICC Intercontinental Cup match between Scotland and Afghanistan should never have taken place. After the complicitly-complacent Scots had thrown in an early towel with an inept first-innings batting display, had Afghanistan done 'the right thing' on Day 2, they would have enforced the follow-on and, in all probability, the match would have been all over by the close of Day 3.
As it was, the game went into a totally engrossing fourth day's play, when Afghanistan's 'wrong' decision allowed Scotland to bat last and - to a certain extent - keep alive the possibility of a draw that would have kept them at the top of the I-Cup table. The ludicrous run target of 546 for outright victory was always completely out of range for Scotland. Their batsmen needed quite simply to avoid getting out. And they made a pretty good fist of it. After battling away for six hours, had they lasted out another hour, the Scots would have achieved this target, and would rightly have been praised, because it was clear that every man actually cared.
In the end, though, they were all out - for 316 - and lost the game by the meaningless margin of 230 runs. That margin, and more, was donated by that horror performance in the first innings, which may now have put an international career or two into abeyance.
On the final day, when only pride was at stake for the Scots, each batsman had to play his part. Those who did found it a heart-wrenching, but enhancing, experience. First-Class rookie Ryan Flannigan had gone the previous evening, three overs from the close, intoxicated by a sudden spate of completely meaningless runs. He kicked and cursed himself all the way back to the pavilion; hopefully, he has learned.
Ewan Chalmers certainly did, playing superbly on the final morning - with eleven flowing drives along the ground to the boundary interspersed with rigorous front-foot defence against the spinners. Then, cruelly, a minute lapse of concentration allowed his umpteenth defensive push to squirt six inches above the ground to (very) silly point. He had made 67; it so easily could have been three figures; lunch was only a couple of overs away; and Chalmers realised how vital his departure would turn out to be for his team.
Meanwhile Richie Berrington had battled his own personal second-half-of-the-season demons with a resolute 22 in a 45-run partnership with Chalmers, before becoming the first of five consecutive lbw victims - there had been only one such verdict in the previous three days, and Abdullah's left-arm spin was nothing special. A hapless Qasim Sheikh followed, limping, with a crushed toe pinned to the ground by a middle-stump yorker from the astonishing Hamid Hassan, who bowled 34 overs for another five-wicket haul.
After 57 balls either side of the tea interval in a 46-run partnership with Moneeb Iqbal, Majid Haq reinforced Hassan's liking for left-handed lbw victims, after looking likely to linger much longer. Iqbal laboured wonderfully for his 42 from 125 balls before tiredness trapped him inadequately forward to a straight ball from the entirely inoffensive medium-pacer Mirwais Ashraf; Iqbal departed dumbfounded, disbelieving and utterly distraught.
Simon Smith, promoted after his sensible first-innings display, became the senior player, coaching and coaxing young Matty Parker over-by-over not to be lulled by his luscious boundary drives into a false sense of security. But it was Smith who departed first, the last of the lbw victims, and perhaps the least convincing, to leg-spinner Samiullah Shenwari.
Skipper Gordon Drummond took over the mentoring role with Parker. But 40 runs later, the latter was left to link up with first-innings top-scorer Dewald Nel, to try forlornly to survive the last 28 overs of the game. They managed 10 before the inevitable Hassan finally flicked the edge of Parker's bat, the ball initially dropped by wicket-keeper Mohammad Shahzad before finishing up - cruelly from Scotland's point of view - in the cradle of his elbow.
It was all over. Afghanistan leap-frogged Scotland to the top of the I-Cup table. The Scots now have to regroup and prepare for the fight of their lives in their final round-robin game - effectively a semi-final against 'A Zimbabwe XI' somewhere in Africa, or possibly the full 'Zimbabwe' in Harare - in October. Afghanistan will await the outcome with less than trepidation.
