Scotland were knocked out of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup on Friday after they lost to Zimbabwe by five wickets in Hobart.
After victory over West Indies on Monday the squad were well placed to get out of Group B in the first phase and into the Super 12 phase like in 2021.
However, it was not to be in very tense circumstances as Wednesday’s loss to Ireland was followed by this defeat at the Bellerive Oval as 132-6 played 133-5.
Zimbabwe topped the group and progress with Ireland while, after his side’s Australian adventure came to an abrupt end, Scotland skipper Richie Berrington said: “I think we maybe fell 25-30 runs short of where we wanted to be with the bat. We just struggled to get momentum through the middle part of the innings and towards the back end.
“Credit to the Zimbabwean bowlers I thought they bowled really well in the conditions, but we certainly feel we had a few more runs in us.
“It did feel like a slightly stickier surface than we thought and we were under lights for the first time this week, but we back ourselves to make those adjustments, we just didn’t get momentum through boundaries or with a big couple of overs towards the back end to get us a competitive score.
“We can take a huge amount of confidence and pride from the performances we have put in, obviously the last two games have been disappointing, but we have played a lot of good cricket through the week.
“Ultimately, we didn’t manage to click on the night and Zimbabwe were the better team in this final game.”
Batting first for the third time in the week, Scotland lost Michael Jones for four at the end of the first over and when vice-captain Matthew Cross followed him back to the pavilion for one in the fifth over it was 24-2.
Opener George Munsey was in fine form once again and he would anchor the innings with his second half century of the week, but nobody else could really get going in the face of some good bowling.
Calum MacLeod was the second highest scorer with 25 while Munsey made 54 from 51 balls as Scotland posted 132-6 from their 20 overs.
Tendai Chatari, the opening bowler, led the way with 2-14 for Zimbabwe.
In reply, Zimbabwe made it up to 106-4 with five overs of their innings remaining.
They lost top scorer Craig Ervine for 58 at the end of the 17th over to Mark Watt – MacLeod taking a good catch – before Milton Shumba and Ryan Burl got them home to 133-5 with nine balls remaining. Sikandar Raza had also done well for them with 40.
Josh Davey took 2-16 for Scotland while, as well as the aforementioned Watt, Brad Wheal and Michael Leask also took wickets.
After a day of drama Scotland finished third in the group with West Indies fourth while, from Group A which was completed on Thursday, Sri Lanka and the Netherlands progressed.
