SCO vs PAK: 2nd T20I, Review: Pakistan clean sweep Scotland 2-0

The Scotland cricket team raised a lot of expectations among the fans for the T20I series against Pakistan after their famous ODI win against England last week. They managed to stun the No. 1 ODI side after they defeated them by 6 runs. However, the Scots failed to carry forward this winning momentum into the T20I series against Pakistan.

Scotland lost both the T20Is that they played against the No 1 T20I side. Their plans of upsetting the visitors didn’t really work out as Pakistan clean swept the series 2-0. The visitors were thoroughly dominant in the 2nd T20I while Scotland didn’t manage to cling on to the crucial moments in the game. Sarfraz Ahmed’s men won the match by 84 runs putting down curtains on all the expectations of an upset.

Shoaib Malik provides Pakistan with the much-needed final impetus

On a track that is a paradise for the batsmen, Pakistan had no hesitations to bat first after winning the toss. With short boundaries at Edinburgh, big total on the board was always expected from the side batting first. However, unlike in the first game, the Scotland bowlers bowled much better this time. They were very clinical in the first 15 overs of the game. But, they let things off their grip in the last five overs where they conceded over 60 runs.

Openers Fakhar Zaman and Ahmed Shehzad provided the team with a very good start initially. They stitched a good partnership of 60 runs for the opening wicket. While Fakhar scored 33, Shehzad managed to score 24 runs. However, Scotland was quick to pull things back as this duo was dismissed in a difference of one over. Soon, Sarfraz, who was the star in the first game was also dismissed for 14 runs.

Scotland put pressure on Pakistan by dismissing Hussain Talat for 17 runs and Asif Ali for a duck. It seemed as if they were in complete control of the game until Shoaib Malik decided to take the bowlers on. He accelerated quickly and scored a quick-fire 49 off 22 balls to take Pakistan to a decent total. At the end of 20 overs, they managed to put up 166 runs on the board for the loss of 6 wickets which was a decent enough total. Micheal Leask was the best bowler on the day and has picked 3 wickets.

Scotland batsmen bury themselves in the chase with poor shot selections

Halfway through the innings, Scotland would have been pretty satisfied. They didn’t leak as many runs as they did in the first T20I and would have felt that they had a chance of chasing this down. The Pakistani bowlers, on the other hand, had their work cut out and needed to be very clinical to win this game.

In the end, the Pakistani bowlers were the ones with the upper hand in the game. They were absolutely relentless right from the first over. George Musey was dismissed off the third ball of the innings. Usman Khan picked his wicket and soon, skipper Kyle Coetzer was also dismissed just for one run putting Scotland in a spot of bother.

Although Richie Berrington and Calum MacLeod tried to put the innings back on track, they scored at a slow pace and the required run rate kept creeping up. They lost wickets regularly and the Pakistan bowlers never let their foot off the pedal. Faheem Ashraf picked 3 wickets in the innings conceding just 6 runs while Usman Khan picked 2 wickets for 4 runs. Pakistan won the game by a mammoth margin of 84 runs.

Brief Scores

Pakistan: 166/6 in 20 overs (Shoaib Malik 49*, Fakhar Zaman 33, Micheal Leask 3/31)

Scotland: 82/10 in 14.4 overs (MacLeod 26, Berrington 20, Faheem Ashraf 3/6)

Pakistan won the game by 84 runs.