By Brian Thomas
Scotland came up with a night to remember performance when they came up with a solid performance to beat a strong Bangladesh eleven by 6 runs in Oman a short while ago.
The Scottish pocket the much needed 2 points and look like the early bird in sight of a place in the super 12 round, in World Cup T 20, 2021.
Put into bat, the pippers lost their skipper, for a golden duck, when Saifudeen the Bangladeshi seamer yorked his neck and with the score on 4.
George Munsey the mussel man impressed with his 20-ball 29, but the Scottish middle order was undone by Mahedi Hassan and Shakib Al Hassan, the two spinners, who had them in the dumps at 53 for 6 wickets.
The Scottish middle-order Mathew Cross, Richie Berrington, Calum Mcleod, and Michael Leask were all sent back to the hutch, and the Bangladeshi supporters were in jubilation, expecting an early win.
A 51 run partnership for the seventh wicket between Chris Greeves and Mark Watt gave the Scotsman the much-needed oxygen to pose a total of 140 for 9, in their allotted 20 overs.
Bangladesh was excellent on the field, in catching and ground fielding as well. However, Greaves and Watt took the aerial route to thud 4 massive sixes between themselves, to help their team to a reasonable score to bowl at.
Mahedi Hassan 3 for 19 and Shakib Al Hassan 2 for 17, looked very impressive. Incidentally, Shakib is now the leading wicket-taker in the T 20 format, he got pass Lasith Malinga the Sri Lankan sensation in this game.
Bangladesh in pursuit of 141, lost both Litton Das and Soumia Sharkar for 5 runs each, both caught out during the power play.
The Tigers fought back and were on 2 for 65 with the ever-reliable Musfiqur Rahim and Shakib Al Hassan steering the ship to safety. But Leggy Chris Greeves, not only struck gold with his bat but also with the ball and the Bangladeshi tigers lost two quick wickets with the score on 74. Shakib Al Hassan, caught in the deep off a loose ball for 20, and Musfiqur out for 38, bowled by Greeves when he tried a fancy scoop.
The rest of the batters were restricted to some fine seam and spin bowling by the Scottish. Brad Wheal with 3 for 24 and Josh Davey with 1 for 24 were the two seamers who impressed.
Greeves with his leg-spin won the man of the match for his 45 runs, and his 2 for 19, in this historic win for the Scotts.
Mahumudulla Riyad the Bangladeshi skipper made a valuable 24, whilst Afif Hossain looked threatening on 18.
Bangladesh came with the six runs range thanks to Mahedi Hassan who made a last moment effort with 13 off just 6 balls, guess he batted too low in the order to spoil the Scotland party. The think tank of the Bangladeshi team should get Mahedi to bat up the order.
Great win for Scotland. Bangladesh has two more games in this qualifier , against Oman and PNG. They will fancy their chances with the two minnows for sure.
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