Burger hails Saltires after last-ball thriller

Scotland cricket coach Shane Burger has expressed his delight that his team were stretched to the limit in Tuesday’s thrilling last-ball win over Ireland.

The Scots ultimately held their nerve to secure the morale-boosting success in Abu Dhabi ahead of their T20 World Cup Qualifier opener against Singapore in Dubai early tomorrow.

Victory at once avenged defeat by the same one-run margin to the Irish a month earlier and saw the team bounce back from a lacklustre loss to UAE in their opening warm-up match.

Burger believes his team, among the favourites to claim one of the six places on offer next year in Australia, are ready for the real action to begin.

Indeed, Scotland may be quietly confident of successfully defending the Qualifying Trophy they shared with Holland four years ago.

Burger, pictured, said: “I’m actually really happy we got taken to the wire and I think it’s going to bode well for the tournament.

“To get over the line against a very good Irish side that did it to us not so long ago is really nice. It’s going to leave us in a good space.”

The South African, going into his first major tournament since replacing Grant Bradburn as coach, added: “We played relatively poorly against UAE and wanted to put things right.

“Although 210 was still above par we still had to go out and bowl well. I thought at times we were excellent with the ball and in the field.”

The Scots start strong favourites to make a winning start against a Singapore side they have never faced in a T20 international and who are 10 places below them in the official ICC rankings.

Burger’s men also face Kenya, PNG, Namibia, Bermuda and Netherlands during the group stage. If they finish top they will secure automatic qualification and avoid play-offs.