Scotland’s men saw their hopes of winning a fourth successive match in ICC Cricket World Cup League 2 dashed as a tropical cyclone moved its way towards Muscat, Oman as the Scots prepared to take on their hosts for the second time this week.
After a short rain delay, the match got underway with Scotland batting first and the side were in a good position on 100/3 after 23 overs when the rain started to come down. George Munsey was leading the way for Scotland on 58no from 53 balls. But the match was eventually called off as conditions continued to deteriorate.
It was an anticlimactic end to a good week of cricket for Head Coach Shane Burger’s side, who took two wins over Papua New Guinea and one against Oman.
“It’s disappointing that we couldn’t get out and play again, but all in all I’m relatively pleased with the trip,” said Burger. “To get seven out of eight points in foreign conditions, particularly against a team like Oman who are probably going to push us all the way to the end of the CWCL2, to get a victory against them and have a game set up in a reasonable position when the rain did come, we’ll take a lot of heart from that.
“It was good to see George Munsey get in form with the bat. I thought he played excellently under pressure coming in when we were 20/3 and it was good to see him form that partnership with Richie Berrington. I have to be happy with what we’ve come here and done. We’ve certainly achieved our goals that we set. I would have loved to have won today and got a full game of cricket in, but it wasn’t meant to be, so we now move to Dubai to jump back into T20 cricket. We’re really excited as a group and looking forward to that.”
While disappointed to see the game called off, captain Kyle Coetzer is pleased with his side’s performance over the series: “If we were offered seven points out of eight at the start of the tour, we would have taken them. We came out with a challenge of having not played any 50 over cricket and being able to come out here and put in some solid performances in really tough conditions has been pretty exceptional. I think these conditions are probably the toughest that any of our guys have faced so to come here and front up against good teams and show what we’re capable of it a really positive sign going into the next phase of cricket that we have.”
The team now moves on to the UAE, beginning their ICC Men’s T20 World Cup preparations in earnest with a series of warm-up matches beginning with the DafaNewsT20 Summer Bash, hosted by the Emirates Cricket Board.
