Vadiraj Kanakagiri

After beating Bangladesh in their previous encounter, Scotland seemed highly confident to knock off the associate team. But PNG wasn't gonna go off that easy. Till the 17th over of the game, the men from Papua New Guinea held the game in balance, but only to falter at the crunch moments.

The Batting Masterclass

Richie Berrington showed one and all of his class in his innings of 70 off just 49. Although he has played many such innings against associate nations in bilateral series, this was big, considering it was on a world event. Coming in at 26 for 2, he took the defensive approach at the start preventing any more inroads from the PNG quicks.

Once he was set, he started to take on the spinners. He hit a monstrous six off Siaka, which carried a distance of 97m. His use of the feet made the bowlers pitch it short, to which he brought out the pull shot with disdain. The bowlers tried bowling too full, but were punished by the sweeps from Berrington. The skill on display from Berrington was to the next level. He finished his innings trying to clear the ground in the penultimate over on 70. His partnership with Matthew cross, who himself scored a mighty fine 45, was the standout in the innings, as the pair added 92 for the third wicket.

Wickets Galore in Final Two

Scotland were on 150 for 3 at the 18th over mark. Speculations of the total reaching 180 were going on. But a combination of plenty of mishits, bowling variations, some good catching at the boundary line, resulted in Scotland losing 6 wickets in the final 2 overs. Chad Soper picked up 2 in the 19th over and then Kabua Morea made it even better by picking 3 in the over to go with a run out, making it four in the final over.

Non existent top order for PNG

Be it in the previous game or this one, the top order of the PNG literally haven't hit the ground running, except for their captain Assad vala. But in this innings, when he too was out for 18, Scotland felt the game was almost in their hands. Wickets fell on regular intervals as 6 batters were back in the hut with just 67 on the board in 11.3 overs.

Amazing Rearguard action

The game almost seemed lost when Norman Vanua came to the crease. But he had decided to go down swinging. And it worked for him too. Almost. He smacked two fours and two sixes enroute his aggressive innings of 47. His dominance rubbed off on the batters at the other end as well, as Kiplin Doriga and Chad Sopers joined hands and hit a couple of mighty blows themselves.

Watt at it again

With PNG needing 46 off 24, the game was in balance. One or two hits out the ground, would've surely made the game more interesting. But just as was the case in the previous game, Watt shut the door for the opposition, by conceding just 4 in his over and also picking up a wicket. Josh Davey made it even worse for PNG, as he too did the exact replica of what Watt did, in terms of runs and wickets. Davey finished the game with impressive figures of 18 for 4.

Brief scores: Scotland 165/9 in 20 overs (Richie Berrington 70, Matt Cross 45; Kabua Morea 4-31, Chad Soper 3-24) beat PNG 148 in 19.3 overs (Norman Vanua 47; Josh Davey 4-18) by 17 runs.