Scotland’s men took a five wicket win over Ireland in the UAE as they returned to T20 action following their CWCL2 campaign last week.
With less than two weeks to go until their first ICC Men’s T20 World Cup game against Bangladesh, Scotland fielded a much-changed line up for the friendly match, with Oli Hairs, Craig Wallace and Chris Greaves all joining the 11.
Having won the toss and electing to bowl first, Scotland made a rapid start as Hamza Tahir dismissed Irish opener Paul Stirling for a duck in the first over and this set the tone for the innings with the Irish 176 all out after 20 overs. Tahir, Safyaan Sharif, and Michael Leask each took two wickets, while Greaves took his first for Scotland.
Having had his inning against Oman curtailed by the cyclone on Saturday, George Munsey picked up where he left off, as Scotland set about the chase, scoring 67 off 25 balls to put his side in a strong position. But it was Michael Leask and Craig Wallace who saw Scotland home with a partnership of 52 as they reached 178/5 off 17.5 overs.
Scotland assistant coach Craig Wright said: “It’s really good to get a win in our first game back in the T20 format, specifically against our old rivals Ireland. We bowled and fielded well to keep them to 176 on a very quick-scoring ground and then batters knocked it off in professional fashion.
“George Munsey set us off at a rapid pace and then there were good partnerships all the way through with Craig Wallace and Michael Leask seeing us through. It’s a good confidence boost with two days of training now and then back to back games later in the week.”
Scotland will play two matches in the DafaNews T20 Summer Bash on Friday and Saturday this week against PNG and Nambia. Both matches will be shown live on Free Sports in the UK.
