Scotland on the verge of World T20 qualification
Scotland’s female cricketers will take on Bangladesh in the semi-finals of the ICC World T20 qualifiers tomorrow and are now just one win away from qualifying for the showpiece event in the West Indies later this year.
Bangladesh are a quality side – they dismissed UAE for just 39 in their final Group A win yesterday – but Scotland have given themselves a chance in the Netherlands.
The Scots made sure of finishing second in Group B behind Ireland by defeating Thailand in Utrecht.
With the bat, Scotland were wobbling a bit early on sitting on 14-2 and when Rachel Scholes went it was 24-3.
However, skipper Kathryn Bryce and Becky Glen put on 45 runs for the fourth wicket and when the latter was out for 28 off 22 balls Scotland were in a much better position.
In the end they managed to post 97-7 from their 20 overs, Bryce top scoring with 39 not out.
With the ball, Scholes was on fire from the start, taking four wickets out of Thailand’s top five.
She took 4-10, Katie Mcgill chipped in with 2-4 and the other bowlers all did a job as the opposition were restricted to 70 all out.
Scholes said: “We now have a big game coming up in the semi-finals, but this victory against Thailand has given us something to build on. We were defending 97 and knew that the Thailand batters liked to sweep the ball so we had to, as bowlers, get the ball up to them full and straight.
“Thankfully we managed that and we will now get our heads down.”
The semi-finals take place tomorrow with the two winners progressing to Saturday’s final.