Scotland lose out by three wickets in ODI against Namibia

Scotland suffered a threewicket defeat in their latest World Cricket League 2 encounter yesterday following a strong fightback from Namibia.

The Scots set their hosts a target of 208 from their 50 overs and their bowling attack started encouragingly, restricting Namibia to 28 runs in their opening 10 overs and then 82 for five at the 20-over stage.

But the African side picked up the pace to reach 210 for seven with 36 balls to spare.

Scotland started the game in first place in the group following wins over hosts Namibia and Nepal in the opening two matches of their fourgame one-day international series in Windhoek.

However, there was an early blow for the Saltires when former skipper Kyle Coetzer was dismissed lbw for a duck by Ruben Trumpelmann, who went on to take four wickets.

Brandon Mcmullen (56) and opener George Munsey (51) were the key men with the bat for Scotland, but nobody else claimed more than 20 runs in difficult conditions as wicket-keeper Zane Green caught five of the visiting batters, with the tourists bowled out in the final over.

Mcmullen continued to impress by bowling out Namibia's opening batters for a total of 10 runs and then catching skipper Gerhard Erasmus, while Mark Watt took three wickets for 28 runs.

But Chris Sole was among the bowlers who failed to land a wicket from his allocation of 10 overs as Jan Nicol Loftieeaton (67) and Pikky Ya France (52) took the home side past their target with an unbeaten partnership of 99 runs.

Scotland remain top of the league and have five games in hand on second-placed Oman, but Namibia closed their deficit on the leaders to nine points with two games less played.

Shane Burger's side face Nepal tomorrow in the final match of their trip.