The warm-up matches for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 kicked off with two exciting battles in Melbourne.
West Indies emerged victorious over the UAE by 17 runs in the first match, whereas Netherlands fell 18 runs short of Scotland’s total in the second game of the day, yesterday.
West Indies faced a stern challenge from a spirited UAE side as they put on a superb bowling performance against the two-time world champions, led by Junaid Siddique’s breathtaking spell of 4-0-13-5.
However, Brandon King’s 64 and skipper Nicholas Pooran’s 46 helped the Caribbean side post a total of 152/9 in their quota of 20 overs.
UAE never got going with the bat as they lost wickets at regular intervals which kept pegging them back in the chase at every stage.
Opening batter Muhammad Waseem tried his best but he didn’t find enough support from the other end.
Lower-order batter Zawar Farid played an excellent cameo of 29* off 14 towards the end of their innings, putting on an excellent stand of 53 runs with Waseem who remained unbeaten on 69.
But that came too late in the innings as UAE fell short of West Indies’ total by 17 runs.
In the second match of the day, Scotland and Netherlands locked horns at the same venue.
Scotland put on a total of 151/7 on the board, led by Richie Berrington’s 41 and Michael Leask’s 37, while Brandon Glover and Bas de Leede shone with their bowling for Netherlands, picking up three wickets each.
Netherlands had the quality and firepower in their batting unit to chase the target down but Scotland put on a disciplined bowling performance to restrict them to 133/7, winning the match by 18 runs.
Max O’Dowd was Netherlands’ highest scorer with 43 runs to his name, whereas Brad Wheal was the pick of the Scotland bowlers with figures of 2/24 to his name.
-ICC
