Horrific start means Scotland’s fightback counts for nothing

The aphorism has it that, if you are batting first, you cannot win a Test on the opening day, but you can certainly lose it. In abridged form, the same applies in T20: batting teams cannot win a match in the first over, but they can certainly lose it.

So it was for Scotland in their second Super 12 game against Namibia, the fixture in the main stage that they had the best prospect of winning. One over into their daynight match in Abu Dhabi, Scotland were two for three – and they had already lost Kyle Coetzer, their captain, to a finger injury that ruled him out of the contest.

Like several other bowlers this tournament, Namibia’s left-arm quick Ruben Trumpelmann attracted prodigious swing with the new ball. It was enough to decimate the Scottish batting line-up in the opening over. George Munsey played on from the very first ball, before Calum Macleod pushed at a delivery angled across him and stand-in captain Richie Berrington was lbw to an inswinger.

From this wreckage, Scotland at least managed to reach 109 for eight on a tricky pitch not conducive to timing the ball. Michael Leask, who arrived at the crease at 18 for four, was the one Scot able to find fluency, crunching 44 from 27 balls with two sixes.

But Leask’s dismissal, bowled trying to hoick JJ Smit over the short leg-side boundary, meant that he was not around to finish the innings. Instead of a final flourish, Scotland mustered only 17 from the final four overs, ending 20 or so shy of the 130 that they had designs on.

Had they got that many, it may well have been enough to secure their first victory in the main stage of a World Cup.

After Namibia reached 50 for one from nine overs, and seemed in control of the chase, Scotland’s spin trio brought them back into the match, as leg-spinner Chris Greaves, offspinner Leask and left-arm spinner Mark Watt shared four for 56 from 10 overs.

Namibia were suddenly reduced to 67 for four in the 13th over, giving Scotland a glimpse of an unlikely heist. But Namibia’s finishers, David Wiese and Smit, combined to take the side to within sight of victory, before Smit thrashed the winning runs over the off side.

For a country of two million people and only five cricket pitches, victory in their first match in the main stage of the T20 World Cup was a remarkable achievement.