Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Scotland 1st international win

Richie Berrington scored just the 7th Twenty20 international hundred as Scotland secured their 1st international win against a Full Member with a 34-run victory against Bangladesh in The Hague. Berrington helped set a target of 163 and Bangladesh, who enters the match after a 3-0 series win against Ireland, shaped a poor batting display to fall to 9th in the rankings.

Berrington stood head and shoulder above the others in the match; Scotland's next highest score was Calum MacLoed's 19. The supremacy of Berrington was highlighted by the fourth-wicket stand of 64 in seven overs with Preston Mommsen; during which Mommsen contribute 12 off 16 balls.

Berrington reached his 100 from 55 balls with a straight six off Shakib Al Hasan, writing himself a small place in the Twenty20 record-books as the 1st Associate batsman to reach 3 figures in a Twenty20 international. The previous highest was Hiral Patel's unbeaten 88 against Ireland in Colombo in February 2010. In total Berrington struck 10 fours and 5 sixes before picking out cover.

A target of 163 should have been within the compass of Bangladesh's batting line-up, but they could not give themselves a base. A crucial blow came in the 6th over when Tamim Iqbal edged a take to the wicketkeeper.

Wickets continued to fall regularly as the asking rate went into double figures. Gordon Goudie put Scotland inside touching distance when he removed Shakib for 31 and then Majid Haq, who shaped a fine spell of offspin, put the last touches to the performance with 2 wickets in his last over.

No comments:

Post a Comment