Scotland A continued their good start to the season with a 9 wicket win in their three day match against Durham 2nd XI at the Emirates Riverside.
Durham won the toss and elected to bat first. It was a cold first day at the Riverside, but Scotland bowlers claimed early wickets. At lunch on the first day the hosts were on 119/5, with Adrian Neill holding figures of 3/10 off 7 overs.
Steel led a fightback for Durham hitting 49 from 48, but the attacking mentalitly payed off as Durham were all out for 182 from 54.2 overs. Neill claimed 3/14 from his 10 overs, Christian Robertson also calimed 3 wickets from his 10 overs.
Here's Scotland A's wickets from @DurhamCricket 2nd XI 1st Innings 🏏https://t.co/sPVc2dKXZY
— CS+ (@CricketScoPLUS) April 30, 2018
Scotland’s innings began swiftly with George Munsey and Owais Shah proving to be a strong opening partnership. Shah eventually fell in the 16th over, which allowed Chris Greaves and Munsey to build upon Scotland’s start.
George Munsey put in a dominant display and went on to hit 123 from 147 to allow Scotland to hold a 51 run lead at the end of day 1.
Scotland began day 2 exactly where they left off and swiftly moved into the 300’s. The standout knock for the A team was from Dylan Budge. After two good knocks for Scotland A down in Bath the weekend before, he went on to make 151 off 221.
The team were all out from 528 after 128.2 overs with a lead of 346.
Despite claiming two wickets at the end of the 2nd day Durham had managed to put themselves in a strong position to build from ending the day on 129/2.
Day 3 began and the wickets began to tumble as Scotland A looked to seal the victory. After a good morning session in which Scotland took 3 valuable wickets, needing only 5 wickets to win with Durham still 83 runs behind the total.
Durham’s batsman held in well with Weighell hitting a crucial 43 off 41 to get his team over the line. They finished 376 all out. Scotland A needing 31 to win. Tahir the pick of the bowlers for Scotland claiming 6/104 from his 34 overs.
Some highlights from @GeorgeMunsey fantastic 123 against @DurhamCricket 2nd XI in Scotland A's 1st Innings 🏏💪🏻https://t.co/7ybfy4zZo1
— CS+ (@CricketScoPLUS) April 30, 2018
Scotland eased over the line in the final session of Day 3 with Munsey hitting 18 from 27 to seal a 9 wicket victory for the A team.
Kyle Coetzer, who was lead coach for the trip, said after the game “ It was a valuable 3 days of red ball cricket with telling contributions throughout the team. The ability to show focus fro long periods of time seems to be a dying part of the game but the players were able to show their resolve, to do their discplines and basics long than the opposition.”
“Winning crucial moments in the game saw us gain advantages over the 3 days. The highlugts were setting the tone early on the 1st day, with wickets from Neill and centuries from Munsey and Budge followed by the 6 wickets by Tahir.”
Scorecard can be found HERE
