Scotland lost their final match in Dublin by one run to finish second in the GS Holding T20I Tri-Series table.
Richie Berrington, captain for the final encounter, elected to field first when he called the coin at Malahide with two changes to the team – Craig Wallace in for Kyle Coetzer and Safyaan Sharif in for Alasdair Evans.
Ireland, as all teams have done this series, raced through the power-play and beyond with Kevin O’Brien (63) and Gary Wilson (31) piling on the runs to post 138 for the loss of just two wickets inside the fourteenth before Adrian Neill (2/34) sparked a collapse of 7/48.
Tom Sole (2/26), Hamza Tahir (2/32) and Safyaan Sharif (2/36) chipped in with two wickets each to keep Ireland to an around-par score of 186/9 when a total well above 200 looked likely.
In response, Matthew Cross (66* off 55) carried his bat to provide Scotland with an anchor to their pursuit of 187.
By the time Richie Berrington (76) came to the crease in the fourth over after the loss of George Munsey (6) and Michael Leask (7), the pair put on 122 runs in 13.3 overs to give Scotland every chance of chasing down the total and cementing their place at the top of the GS Holding T20I Tri-Series table.
The fall of Berrington after 16.5 overs, with the run-rate still up around 9 per over, unsettled the Scottish batting line-up and put pressure on new batsman MacLeod who fell for 5 six balls later. Hairs’ stay at the crease lasted just one ball as he too struggled to put the ball away with the run-rate creeping up.
With Craig Wallace (7) the new man in, Cross and Wallace needed 21 runs and came agonisingly close, taking the team to within four runs of victory with two balls remaining.
A single off the penultimate ball brought Wallace on strike needing three to win the match and the GS Holding T20I Tri-Series.
Attempting a reverse sweep to put the ball away, a miscued shot meant Wallace and Cross could only run one before being run out attempting the second to take the game to a super-over.
