Scots have South Africa in their sights
Scotland’s cricketers know that two wins over the next two days at the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Europe Qualifier in La Manga, Spain, will see them through to the next qualifying tournament.
The Scots, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany and France are currently battling it out, with the top side progressing to the ICC Women’s World T20 qualifying tournament.
The end goal for all the teams involved is to make it to the World T20 in South Africa in 2023.
The Scots have put themselves in pole position ahead of today’s clash with the Germans and tomorrow’s meeting with France.
That is because Mark Coles’ charges backed up an opening win against the Netherlands with a fine victory over pre-event favourites Ireland on Friday.
In the match against Ed Joyce’s Ireland, Scotland had lost the toss and bowled first.
Led by an outstanding performance from 16-year-old Katherine Fraser, who took 3-14 including two in two balls, they restricted Ireland to 89-9 from their 20 overs.
In the Scotland reply they slumped to 20-4 after nine overs.
It needed a captain’s innings, and they certainly got one from Kathryn Bryce.
The all-rounder, who was recently playing for the Trent Rockets in The Hundred, scored 46 not out from 58 balls and it was backed up by an impressive 22 not out off 19 balls from Becky Glen as the Scots won by five wickets.
After the Ireland match, Scotland head coach Coles said: “I’m just immensely proud, we’ve made a lot of progress and that’s shown.
“There’s a few things that we need to tidy up, and it’s one step at a time with Germany and France still to play.”
Any slip up from the Scots in the fixtures over the next couple of days could still be pounced upon by the Irish.