Team effort is key to Scots success

Grantbradburnhasexpressed his delight at the teamwork that has taken Scotland to the brink of a semi-final berth in the Desert T20.

The Scots were forced to dig deep to carve out a thrilling seven-run win against Holland in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.

Victory against Oman in Dubai today will clinch a likely showdown with Ireland in the last four tomorrow and Bradburn believes his men will take confidence from the manner of their triumph over the Dutch. They first recovered from 13 for three to post 148 for seven and then bowled out Holland who had raced to 53 without loss inside six overs.

The coach said: “I’m very proud of the guys for the way they came through that game and the most pleasing thing is that it was a real team effort.

“We know the stats say when you lose three wickets in the power-play you are unlikely to win but we stuck to our plans and the players believed in themselves.

“Calum [Macleod] and Richie [Berrington] re-built the innings but we had several valuable knocks from guys down the order. Con de Lange and Craig Wallace contributed important runs before Safy [Sharif ] hit the ball out of the park twice in the last over. We then showed real calmness and composure in the field in a tight finish and that’s also very pleasing.”

The Scots have beaten Oman in the sides’ previous two T20 meetings but Bradburn is taking nothing for granted against a team who crushed Hong Kong by seven wickets on Monday. He added: “Every team here is capable of beating each other so we will have to be ready to produce another big performance.”