Scotland fall to crushing defeat against Indians

CAPTAIN Kyle Coetzer lamented ‘a bad day at the office’ as Scotland crashed to an eight-wicket defeat to India at the T20 World Cup. Virat Kohli’s men needed a big win to improve their chances of making the semifinals and achieved it with relative ease, bowling the Saltires out for just 85 before chasing down that total in 6.3 overs. It was the perfect way for Indian great Kohli to mark his 33rd birthday as India moved up to third in the table. The world’s third-best side still need a favour from Afghanistan in their final group game against New Zealand but have given themselves a chance after a poor start to the tournament. Scotland, in contrast, are moving in reverse. A brilliant first round where they won all three of their games is quickly becoming a distant memory, with this a fourth Super 12 loss in a row. They finish their fixtures against Pakistan tomorrow. Kohli was one of a number of Indian players to come into the Scotland dressing room after the game to chat and offer advice and Coetzer reckons that sort of experience is invaluable. ‘We were outclassed in every department but the only way we are going to improve is by going through games like that,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t our day but the boys will still take a lot from that.’ George Munsey had got Scotland off to a flier as he smashed a six to reach 1,500 T20I career runs but it proved to be something of a false dawn as the wickets started to fall. Scotland’s total was nowhere near big enough and Indian openers Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul set about achieving it as quickly as they could, with Rahul smashing a half-century from 18 balls and Suryakumar Yadav eventually bashing another big six to seal a resounding win.