SCOTLAND took another step on the road to next year’s 50-over World Cup with a 64-run win over the United Arab Emirates in Aberdeen.
Shane Burger’s men are playing catch-up on leaders Oman at the top of the World Cricket League 2 table but got off to a flying start in the first of their 12 games in hand.
Calum MacLeod was the star turn with a knock of 76 as Scotland posted a total of 262, with UAE falling well short of that tally despite Rohan Mustafa’s half-century. Mark Watt was the pick of the Scotland bowlers with four wickets for 30, although Chris Sole also stood out as he demonstrated some ferocious pace early in the innings.
“That’s a really good start to the series,” said man-of-the-match MacLeod. “We thought putting 262 up was a little bit under par but that spell from Soley up front was as fast as I’ve seen with him in a Scotland shirt.
“I’ve played enough Associate cricket now to know you’ve got to turn up and play well to have any chance of winning but we back ourselves. If we turn up with the right mindset and attitude and intensity then we always feel that we can do pretty well.”
Matt Cross captained the side in Richie Berrington’s absence and chose to bat on a warm and dry day after winning the toss.
That looked a great call when former Kyle Coetzer smashed the first four deliveries to the boundary to get Scotland up and running.
Craig Wallace opened the batting alongside Coetzer, a well-deserved start following a fine summer in the domestic game for Forfarshire.
The duo made it through to 52 without loss before the former skipper fell for 23. When next man in Chris McBride then departed for three after being caught behind and Wallace fell for 35 it left Scotland toiling on 79/3 after 17 overs, the fast start now a distant memory.
With George Munsey again also missing due to injury, that placed the onus on MacLeod and Cross to try to steady the ship and the duo did that for a spell until the stand-in skipper top-edged a simple chance to debutant Sabir Ali to end his innings on 25.
Scotland at this point were in danger of setting UAE a simple chase and needed the middle order to up the run rate again to make the final tally more daunting for their visitors.
MacLeod took on the challenge, making his half-century from 61 balls as he and Chris Greaves stepped up the pace in the northeast sunshine.
When Greaves was bowled for 2, in came Michael Leask, another eager to make his mark on home soil. MacLeod finally went lbw for 76 from 88 balls, with Leask contributing a quickfire 39 from number seven to help Scotland to 262 all out from 48.5 overs.
That looked within UAE’s reach but two quick wickets from Sole left the visitors on 14/2, giving the hosts fresh optimism.
Chirag Suri was next to go caught behind before Rizwan CP departed having been rapped twice on the helmet earlier in his innings to leave UAE on 66/4.
The Emirati, though, came back strongly, with Rohan Mustafa and Basil Hameed adding 65 for the fifth wicket as they looked to chase down the Scotland total.
Watt was the man to end that stance by having Hameed caught for 34 and the left-armer added two more wickets from two balls to leave UAE on 151/7.
When Leask had Ahmed Raza caught in the deep, the visitors were up against it, still needing 93 to win. The last two wickets fell not long after, leaving Mustafa unbeaten on 65 at the other end.
Scotland’s next match is against the USA on Saturday.
Cross said: “I’m really proud of the boys with the performance they put in today. I thought Mark Cross was exceptional. Any time I threw him the ball something happened.”
