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Four women umpires will officiate in the Women’s World T20 Qualifier in Bangkok from November 28 to December 5. The ICC said in a release that New Zealand’s Kathy Cross, Australia’s Claire Polosak, England’s Sue Redfern and West Indies’ Jacqueline Williams have been picked for the tournament, in which Bangladesh, China, Ireland, Netherlands, Papua New Guinea, Scotland, Thailand and Zimbabwe’s women teams will compete for two spots in the 2016 World T20.Cross, the most experienced of the four, had become the first woman to be named in an ICC umpires’ panel in 2014, having been added to the Associate and Affiliate panel. She umpired in the Women’s World Cup in 2000, 2009 and 2013, the Women’s World Cup Qualifier in 2011 and the Women’s World T20 Qualifier in 2013.Polosak is the youngest of the four at 27, and recently carried out the duties of third umpire in the Matador One-Day Cup, becoming the first woman to officiate in Australian List A cricket. Redfern has played cricket for England, bowling left-arm spin in six Tests and 15 ODI’s from 1995 to 1999, after which she took up umpiring. Williams, who is from Jamaica, recently made her international debut, standing in the first ODI and T20 between West Indies Women and Pakistan Women in the Caribbean. She is set to become the first woman to officiate West Indies’ first-class tournament, the WICB Regional Four-Day tournament, once she returns home from Thailand.Cross said she was happy to finally get the opportunity to officiate with other women, a big step for women in the game. “Each tournament brings something new for women’s cricket, and this latest development hopefully shows that the quality of [women’s] umpiring is getting better and better, as the calibre of [women’s] teams is certainly improving,” Cross said. “I have enjoyed the experience of officiating in different parts of the world, but I have been alone, as a woman, in the middle for quite some time.”So, it’s great for all of us to have this opportunity in Thailand this week at such an important tournament. I think that the selection of four females can set down a pathway for more people to come through the system.”Also officiating in the tournament will be umpires Allan Haggo and Nigel Morrison, and match referee Graeme Labrooy.

Back in October, the New Zealand touring team was hosted for a tour match at Blacktown Oval to Sydney’s west – if “hosted” is the right word. The ground staff had been unable to grow grass after the football season, leaving a pitch of rolled mud that was at first a road before growing progressively more treacherous.Fearing injuries to their batsmen before the first Test, New Zealand pressed successfully for the match to be abandoned, and made a speedy exit to Brisbane. The absurdity of the episode was only enhanced by the fact that Cricket Australia had scheduled a Sheffield Shield match to be held at New Zealand Cricket’s high performance centre in Lincoln by way of preparation for the return trip, and that the centre’s curator was at Blacktown that week discussing facilities with Cricket NSW.Four months on, and there will be no “get square” on the outskirts of Christchurch. The pitch for the Shield fixture between NSW and Western Australia will not suffer for lack of grass coverage, and nor will it force an early abandonment. The flexibility of New Zealand to allow an event without precedent in cricket history – a domestic match played on the shores of an imminent Test match opponent – is rare in an age of administrators protecting hometown results, and may yet have other flow-on benefits for the nation across the Tasman.The concept was first discussed as New Zealand and Australia pieced together a new bilateral agreement in the afterglow of last year’s World Cup. Cricket Australia argued there was insufficient time amid a looming World Twenty20 for the originally scheduled three Tests and a warm-up match, and New Zealand countered that a revival of the dormant Chappell-Hadlee ODI series would be advantageous. The Sheffield Shield match was tossed up as a compromise for cricketers not part of the 50-over series.”The scheduling is a significant jigsaw puzzle at the best of times,” CA head of operations Sean Cary told ESPNcricinfo. “But with the lead-up to the World Twenty20 and Australia needing to play India at home, New Zealand in New Zealand, South Africa away before the T20 World Cup, we had to jockey between the three countries to alter the FTP slightly to fit everything in.”The New Zealand tour match came about because we’d changed the original schedule for a three-Test tour to two Tests with ODIs in a shorter space of time. That meant we didn’t really have enough time to play a fully-fledged tour match before the Test series, so in part of the negotiations around additional matches for the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy series we floated with NZC the idea of playing a Shield match in New Zealand in lieu of the tour match.”We chose a NSW home match v WA because a large proportion of the current Test squad comes from those two states.”As it has turned out, only Peter Nevill, Nathan Lyon and Adam Voges will be taking part among members of the Test side, while Joe Burns, Jackson Bird, James Pattinson, Peter Sidle and Chadd Sayers must be content with a Shield match for Queensland on the eastern seaboard. The likes of Steven Smith, David Warner, Shaun Marsh, Mitchell Marsh and Usman Khawaja are part of the ODI series.Even so, the fixture is providing a chance for further cross-pollination between the administrations of the two countries. “Essentially its a NSW home match, so they operationally take their structure from Sydney to Christchurch,” Cary said. “NZC have supported in that they are match managing the contest. There are some little bits and pieces to fine tune like online scoring and that side of it, we need to do a bit of work ourselves with NZC to make sure everything looks and feels as if it’s being played in Australia … but essentially it’s a NSW home game.The pitch in Blacktown, where New Zealand’s tour game was abandoned on their tour of Australia•Getty Images

“NZC are responsible for the wicket. In our pre-tour visit I met the curator, I went out to the ground, he showed me which wicket is being used, it’s right in the centre of the block. They’ve not played any cricket on it this summer until that Shield match so it’s going to be in pristine condition, and the curators these days have a lot of pride in their work. They’ll produce as best quality wicket they possibly can.”As for the Blacktown episode, Cary said there was a strong degree of understanding among the New Zealand ground staff for the problems faced at by those responsible for the ground at the time. He also conceded it had been CA’s error to have the tour game played in Sydney rather than in Brisbane, where Allan Border Field sat unused at the same time the Blacktown match was called off.”There’ll be no tit-for-tat there,” Cary said. “We’re first to acknowledge unfortunately we didn’t make the right decision in terms of venue selection for that Blacktown game. We apologised profusely and gave the best possible solution for New Zealand after that. Funnily enough the curator at Lincoln was actually at Blacktown at that time because they’d been invited over to see what NSW had done with their indoor centre and training set-up and providing their own information.”He saw the situation and was very much feeling sorry for the curator because he knew he didn’t have much to play with in terms of a four-day wicket. They were sharing knowledge about the indoor nets for all seasons that New Zealand cricket are starting to prepare, and they were sharing that knowledge with Cricket NSW.”What is clear about this fixture and its lead-up is that relationships are building between the two countries that may be useful in future. The concept of New Zealand-based Big Bash League teams has been touted in recent times, and such a possibility will be more realistic for all the information sharing that has gone on over the past year or so.”Because of the relationship the curators built up through the World Cup being hosted in both countries, we had the New Zealand curator group here and our curator group went to New Zealand over the two years leading into the World Cup,” Cary said. “They’ve built relationships, they share knowledge and everyone gets along well.”From a high performance perspective it gives guys opportunities to get a taste for international cricket, they travel to another country, they have to go through all the rigmarole of customs and getting acclimatised and all those things. So it helps our developing cricketers, and also shows we can share knowledge and experience in an operational sense and hopefully learn from each other and be better at putting on cricket in our respective countries.”Lincoln’s quiet surrounds will feel a long way from the hustle and bustle of the BBL, but it will also be very distant from those chaotic scenes at Blacktown. New Zealand’s generosity to Australia in this case should not be forgotten.

Trent Boult’s bowling is once again “pretty special”, with the bowler having recovered from the back complaints that plagued him during the Australia tour, New Zealand bowling coach Dimitri Mascarenhas has said. Boult had been rested for much of the ODI series against Sri Lanka, but took 3 for 43 in the fifth one-dayer, then 3 for 21 in the first T20, in his home-province ground of Mount Maunganui. Boult’s performance in Thursday earned him a Man-of-the-Match award.There had been concerns about Boult’s form even during the Tests against Sri Lanka, in which he appeared significantly diminished since New Zealand’s last home summer. Having recently been one of the fittest bowlers in the pace battery, Boult’s speeds had regularly begun to dip into the mid-120kph range.Mascarenhas believes Boult is now back to near his best, following that brief break from the side. “Trent had a tough time in Australia and since then – he’s a world class bowler and he knows what he needs to do to get back to his best, and he has done that,” he said. “He has overcome his injury, he has worked really hard and he’s reaping some really good rewards now, which is great to see.”Boult had delivered a vital 17th over on Thursday, with Sri Lanka threatening to run down New Zealand’s 182 for 4. He conceded only three runs in that over, and also claimed the scalp of Milinda Siriwardana, who had led Sri Lanka’s surge. Mitchell McClenaghan also bowled a six-run penultimate over, and Grant Elliott defended 13 runs from the final over, to complete a three-run win.”It looked as though it could be getting away from us right at the end,” Mascarenhas said. “They only needed 35 off 24 balls. In T20 standards that’s pretty easy, with the size of the boundaries and the size of the bats. But Mitchell McClenaghan and Trent Boult at the end were brilliant in their last couple of overs. And for Grant Elliott to finish off like he did was good.”New Zealand had appeared to be headed for a comfortable victory when they had Sri Lanka 42 for 4, before Siriwardana, with help from Danushka Gunathilaka and Thisara Perera, revived the chase. Mascarenhas suggested New Zealand should be prepared for more such comebacks.”As we saw with the Sri Lankans, they are going to come hard from start to finish and I think that is going to be the theme moving forward going into the World T20,” he said. “All the teams bat deep so we have to be aware that if you have a team five down they are not just going to roll over and die. We are going to have to fight really hard.”

A century by one-drop Kashinath Khadkikar helped hosts Maharashtra to301/7 at stumps on the opening day of their Cooch Behar Trophy prequarter final game against Karnataka at the Nehru Stadium in Pune onFriday.After winning the toss and electing to make first use of the wicket,Maharashtra lost opener SK Kamathe to left arm seamer Steve Lazarus inthe third over of the innings for nought.Off spinner Mulewa Dharmichand scalped the next two wickets as thehosts slipped to 80/3 before Khadkikar and RR Dharwat (37) launched arecovery, compiling 119 runs for the fourth wicket. Both weredismissed in the space of four balls at the same scoreline of 199.Khadkikar had made 123 of those, in 175 balls with 22 boundaries. Thelower order chipped in with useful contributions and at stumps APThakur (25) and KR Adhav (20) were holding sway. Dharmichand finishedwith the best figures of 3/96.

ScorecardRobin Uthappa struck his third successive century this season, while Mayank Agarwal stroked his maiden first-class century as Karnataka flattened Delhi in a marquee top of the table clash in Hubli. It rained runs on what appeared to be a green top, with Karnataka racing away to 358 for 3 when stumps were drawn. Pawan Suyal, the medium pacer, was the most successful bowler for Delhi with the wickets of R Samarth (17) and Agarwal (118).Uthappa’s 148 was studded with 16 fours and six sixes, with the highlight of the day being his two fours and four sixes in a single over off Dhruv Shorey to race from 95 to 127. It also happened to be his 17th century in the Ranji Trophy to put him joint-second with Rahul Dravid in the list of century makers for Karnataka. Brijesh Patel tops the charts with 26 centuries.
ScorecardAbhimanyu Easwaran’s 88 was the highlight on a day in which 20 wickets fell in Kalyani as Bengal took charge against Odisha despite being bowled out for a paltry 142 in the first innings. While Easwaran was the batting mainstay, Aamir Gani, the offspinner, returned career-best figures of 6 for 34 to skittle Odisha for 107. Easwaran and Sayan Mondal then added 20 without losing a wicket in nine overs as Bengal ended a frenetic day with a 58-run lead.On a day in which little went right for Odisha with the bat, their bowlers gave a good account of themselves, with Dhiraj Singh, the left-arm spinner, taking 5 for 58. Suryakant Pradhan, the medium pacer, had three scalps.
ScorecardPankaj Singh made an impact immediately upon returning from a hamstring injury by taking 4 for 10 in 14.2 overs as Haryana were shot out for 112 in Lahli. Virender Sehwag, who returned to lead the side after missing the last two games because of his commitments with the All-Stars T20 series in USA, top scored with 29, while Mohit Sharma, batting at No.10 contributed 23.Rajasthan’s openers started well with Manendar Singh and Vineet Saxena added 61, before Ashish Hooda broke through to dismiss the debutant for 22. Saxena and Puneet Yadav ensured there would be further casualties as Rajasthan ended the day on 75 for 1, bringing the deficit down to just 37 with the heart of their batting still to come.No play was possible at the MCA Stadium in Pune after overnight rains and a wet outfield forced the players indoors for most parts of the day. When the outfield was good enough for the match to start, the light deteriorated sharply, with umpires calling off play at 4.10pm. Play will begin 15 minutes early on the remaining three days.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out

A chanceless 159 from Hashim Amla, buttressed by vital contributions fromMark Boucher and AB de Villiers, was the springboard for South Africa todominate the first two sessions of the second day, but India’s openersthen inflicted some punishment of their own on a dozy pitch where thebowlers were seldom more than peripheral players. By the time stumps weredrawn, with four of the scheduled 90 overs still to be bowled, India hadknocked off 82 in pursuit of an imposing South African total.Amla’s superb innings spanned 262 balls and ended only with a runout, but there was still time for Boucher, who made 70, and Morne Morkel,with a brisk 35, to flog sagging spirits before Harbhajan Singh returnedto mop up the tail and finish with 5 for 164. The 100 minutes of battingthat India faced had the potential to be tricky, but Sehwag’s insoucianceand Jaffer’s elegance made light of the challenge posed by a three-manpace attack.Sehwag started with a crisp cover-drive for four before rocking back tocarve Makhaya Ntini over third man for six. A magnificent square drive offDale Steyn and a couple of rasping cuts also roused the crowd, and Jafferwas quick to follow suit at the other end.There was a gorgeous on-drive off Steyn, and an unexpected slap over thirdman for six as Ntini again dropped short. The first 10 overs produced 47runs, and though Ntini and Morkel exerted more control in the final hour,Sehwag still found time to slash over point and drive languidly throughthe covers on his way to a half-century from just 59 balls.The run glut helped India forget a wretched fielding display, with runsleaked in every conceivable fashion. After 19 had been conceded inthe opening three overs, the new ball was taken. There was no immediatereward, though both Amla and de Villiers were extremely fortunate to seethick outside edges fall short of the slip cordon and speed to the rope atthird man.There was nothing fortuitous, however, about the three gorgeouscover-drives with which Amla, unbeaten on 85 overnight, reached hishundred. Sreesanth, as he had on the opening day, tried to do too much,and Amla cashed in with superb timing. He reached his century in 173balls, and India’s plight then got worse as de Villiers cut and pulled theinsipid RP Singh for fours.With such tripe being dished out, it was hard to see where a breakthroughwould come from, but Anil Kumble kept faith in Sreesanth and was soonrewarded for it. After a couple of entirely unnecessary sledges in thedirection of de Villiers, Sreesanth suddenly remembered that wickets aretaken with the ball and not the mouth. A superb delivery just outside offstump induced the edge and Dhoni dived to his right to hold-on.With the fast bowlers leaking runs, Kumble turned to the medium pace ofSourav Ganguly. The over-rate was abysmal and wasn’t helped by a ballchange and frequent consultations with the fielders, and Sreesanth’s lucktoo ran out as Boucher edged one and then survived a huge leg-before shoutcourtesy the thinnest of inside edges.By the time Kumble pressed himself into the attack with Harbhajan, South Africa had cruised past 400, and it only got worse on a real dog-day afternoon for the home side.

Amla’s grip on proceedings was absolute, and with RP and Sreesanthproviding comical examples of how not to stop the ball in the outfield,the scoreboard ticked along merrily. The ease with which the runs came wasembarrassing and Kumble was reduced to bowling into the pads from roundthe wicket to try and limit the damage.Sreesanth was brought back for another burst, but both batsmen continuedto cut and nudge at will on a pitch that might as well have been a fluffypillow. In such situations, the fielding side can only pray and any divineentreaties were answered with Amla being run out. Boucher played the ballinto the vicinity of Sreesanth at cover and though he threw to the wrongend, Mahendra Singh Dhoni was alert enough to rifle the ball through toKumble, who did the rest.Amla, whose ancestors went to the Cape from Surat a few generations ago,left to a richly deserved standing ovation, but India’s misery was farfrom over. Morkel was gifted a full toss by Sreesanth to get off the mark,and two confident off-drives further ruined RP’s woeful afternoon. Boucherand Morkel stretched the partnership to 54 before Boucher’s attempt toswipe Sehwag over midwicket ballooned off the top edge to Rahul Dravidbehind the stumps.Morkel then chipped a return catch to Harbhajan and it was left to Steynto swell the total a little more with some hefty slogs, the pick of whichwas an impudent reverse-slog-sweep off Harbhajan. Harris, reprievedearlier after gloving one to slip, was caught behind, and Harbhajan thenhad Steyn caught in the deep to end the innings. By then though, Indiawere playing catch-up.

If AB de Villiers was less experienced, South Africa might have lost the series to England on Sunday. If AB de Villiers was less experienced, 22 for 3 would have been a hole too deep for him to dig his team out of. If AB de Villiers was less experienced, 237 would have been too much to chase. But AB de Villiers was playing in his 200th ODI and knew exactly what to do: embrace the situation and then overcome it.”You live for those pressure moments,” de Villiers said. “Through an international career, you have ups and down but you always feel you are gong to be tested in moments like that. It has taken me years to feel comfortable and to feel like I have good composure in those situations.”De Villiers knew that after a top-order tumble South Africa needed cool heads. Luckily, he had his calmest team-mate, Hashim Amla, on hand to provide that.”The chat between us was not to worry about the runs and to make sure we get in and not lose another wicket,” he explained. “We’ve done it before. I felt it was really important to take it 10 runs at a time and get to a fifty-run partnership.”After 58 balls together, de Villiers and Amla had that. They’d also survived a squeeze, punished some poor balls and given themselves some breathing room. After another 48 balls, that stand had doubled and South Africa were safe. The captain’s decision to drop himself one lower than the No.4 position he usually bats looked like a stroke of genius and the victory target was well within reach.”I like to push myself a little bit down when we are chasing. I feel I handle the pressure situations well and that’s why I want to be there at the end,” de Villiers said. And if he is there at the end, the South Africans always feel they have a chance.More than his ability and audacious strokeplay, it’s de Villiers’ attitude that keeps his countrymen and, in the space of the last week, his team-mates hopeful. With South Africa 2-0 down, de Villiers rallied his troops and asked them “to keep believing”.He admitted that in facing the prospect of a second series defeat at home in the same summer, they were in a “really dark space”, but that he wanted them to snap out of it.”I asked them to keep spirits up. I asked them to keep believing and have the faith we can come back,” he said. “We showed inspirational videos here and there but we tried to focus on the basics and do the small things right and well, and created more pressure than England and then things went our way.”South Africa also made key personnel changes when they realised the precariousness of their position. They stopped relying on JP Duminy and Farhaan Behardien, to operate as the fifth bowler and brought in an allrounder to give them 10 overs. They shortened their batting line-up from a specialist point of view but added two genuine finishers and seemed to find a better balance, even if it’s not something they will stick with long-term.”I like to think we haven’t moved away from that seven-batsmen option,” de Villiers said. “But David (Wiese) and Chris (Morris) brought a different dynamic. Change was needed after the first two ODIs and they breathed an air of confidence into the side.”Wiese has been the more consistent of the two but Morris will be remembered as the hero after his match-winning innings of 62 at the Wanderers. His knock there kept South Africa alive. It gave them the belief de Villiers sought but they still could have drowned in the wave of emotion that match swept over them. That they didn’t only shows how desperate they were to finish the job.”We took a lot of confidence from that but after an emotional game like that, it’s easy to lose your fighting spirit,” de Villiers said. “We were just maybe a bit more hungry than England to really nail it down.”Even so, he praised the opposition for giving South Africa a wake-up call and a warning for what they will offer in tournaments to come. “They are a fantastic one-day team,” he said. “To come back from rock bottom in that 2015 World Cup. The talent was always there but mentally they had to get through a few obstacles.”Morgs played a big part in that. Even though he didn’t have a great series with the bat, he still had the right body language. He is the right man to take England forward. They will be a team to deal with in the next few years, especially at the 2017 Champions Trophy and 2019 World Cup.”If de Villiers keeps performing like he did at Newlands, so might South Africa.

New Zealand have announced winter contracts for the first time with seven players, including Grant Elliott, on the list. The deals run from May to September and cover the Emerging Players Tournament in Queensland in July and the New Zealand A tour of India in September.”All players contracted will be under consideration for winter tours by the New Zealand A or Emerging Players Tournament sides, or even the Blackcaps,” a New Zealand spokesman confirmed to Cricinfo.”These contracts have been awarded in recognition of their performance in the last domestic season,” Glenn Turner, one of New Zealand’s selectors, said. “We have identified them as possible future Blackcaps, or as players who we expect to build on existing international experience. There is an expectation that they will keep working on their game during the winter.”The allrounder Elliott, 29, made his Test debut against England last month but was overlooked for a full contract two weeks ago. However, the winter deal gives him hope his international career will not stall at one match.Nathan McCullum is one step closer to joining his brother Brendon in the national set-up again after receiving one of the seven contracts. His only match in New Zealand colours came at the World Twenty20 last year, when he made 1 and was not required to bowl against South Africa.Neil Broom, Martin Guptill, Greg Hay, Bradley Scott and BJ Watling were also included in the list. McCullum, Broom and Scott have played together for New Zealand A in 2007, the trio appearing in the Emerging Players Tournament final in Australia where they lost to South Africa.Guptill, 21, is a former New Zealand Under-19 player who made his first-class debut two years ago while Watling, 22, played his initial first-class match in the 2004-05 season. The deals begin on May 19 and continue until the end of September, before the resumption of major association contracts.

In what is being seen as a corporate move, Harbhajan Singh’s pictures have been taken off all the advertisements that promote the Mumbai Indians, including the team’s website.Reliance Industries, the owners of the franchise, thought this was a sensible move, taking into account public sentiment. Harbhajan was found guilty of slapping Sreesanth in the league game against Punjab last week and was banned for 11 IPL games subsequently.”When we know a player is not going to be available for the team it really doesn’t make sense for us to have his picture,” Kaushik Roy, president of branding, Reliance Industries, told Cricinfo.Roy felt the company decided that as long as Harbhajan was not going to take part in the tournament it would be ideal to not include his pictures in any promotional activities, especially when the pictures were meant to attract the crowds. “So as long he is not going to be playing the matches, there is a clear directive.”Retaining Harbajan’s image would amount cheating, Roy felt. “The pictures are for gate sales. You cannot show the pictures of a player who is not playing the game. So there is no use fooling people. That would be unethical advertising.”The team management, meanwhile, is silent on the matter. “It is a corporate decision. In any case it doesn’t make sense to have the picture once he is not playing,” a top official in the Mumbai team said.But the franchise is terming the move “temporary”, and hopes that if Mumbai’s fortunes soar and they make it to the IPL final then Harbhajan will be back on the advertisements. “We hope this will be a temporary arrangement. Mumbai Indians hope to reach the finals, and god willing if that happens, Bhajji will be free to play in that,” an official said.Fearing the move might be termed as controversial the team’s brand managers are now planning to introduce new faces as part of their campaign as that would help newcomers gain public recognition.”The current hoardings featuring Harbhajan Singh, Sachin Tendulkar, Sanath Jayasuriya and Shaun Pollock were put up in the run-up to IPL, because they were the big crowd-pullers,” an official said. “But a decision had also been taken that as the IPL progressed, we would give exposure to the younger lot by turning them into recognisable forces through the hoardings.”

ScorecardPeter Della Penna

Papua New Guinea’s batting underwhelmed again as they conceded the ODI series 2-0 to Scotland with a six-wicket defeat in Dubai. Scotland’s spin trio of Mark Watt, Con de Lange and Michael Leask returned combined figures of 6 for 91 in 30 overs to break the back of PNG’s batting. Scotland took 46.2 overs to run down the 193-run target, and lost six wickets in the process. Kyle Coetzer’s 66, and his partnerships of 61 for the second wicket with Calum MacLeod and 57 for the third with Richie Berrington proved crucial.After being invited to bat, PNG endured a slow start, Tony Ura and Kiplin Doriga putting on 26 in 10.5 overs. Watt was first to strike when he pinged Doriga in front to send him back for 11. PNG then lost three more wickets by the time they had doubled their score, ambling to 52 for 4 in the 22nd over. Sese Bau and Mahuru Dai briefly resurrected them with a 66-run fifth-wicket stand and finished as PNG’s top two scorers, notching up 41 and 38 respectively.Watt’s three wickets made him Scotland’s most successful bowler. He was also their most economical bowler, his 10 overs costing only 21. Leask took 2 for 42 in 10 overs, while de Lange ended his quota with 1 for 28.Scotland stumbled early in their chase, losing Matthew Cross for 3 in the second over. But they pulled themselves together with Coetzer taking control with his ninth ODI fifty. PNG’s bowlers did well to force Scotland to take the chase deep, and eventually the equation read 38 off 64 balls. By then Coetzer had gone. So too were MacLeod (19) and Berrington (39)It was George Munsey’s a run-a-ball 17 that took Scotland closer to the target as he partnered de Lange in a vital 25-run stand for the sixth wicket. De Lange remained unbeaten on 18 while a couple of lusty blows from Safyaan Sharif ensured the tension dissipated rather quickly.