Papua New Guinea and Ireland have qualified for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Australia 2020 after finishing top of their respective groups in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier at Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the UAE. It is more special for the Barramundis, as this will be their maiden apperance in the T20 World Cup.
PNG survived a huge setback begining on the day, when they defeated Kenya in their final group stage game, but not before they were down to 19/6 to stage a marvellous recovery through Norman Vanua’s rescue act with the bat to eventually post 118 on the board. The bowlers including Vanua then got into the act and bowled out Kenya for only 73 to stage a remarkable comeback in the recent history of T20I cricket.
Jersey managed to post a brilliant win over Oman in their final group stage match, which ensured Ireland’s direct qualification from the group into the main draw of T20 World Cup, and for the small island nation, it will be a huge boost to the sport back in the country, after they finished with 3 wins in their group stages + 2 wins in the warm-up games as well.
Netherlands, who were the only team to have prevented PNG taking the top spot, took on their European neighbours Scotland in a cruntch game. Scotland’s total of 130 was needed to be chased down in 12 overs for the Dutch to go past PNG on net run-rate, however, were denied the same by the Scotland bowlers, but eventually won the game on the back of a fine unbeated half-century by Ryan ten Doeschate. The entire PNG squad watched the game from the stands, and the joy after Netherlands failed to chase the target in the stipulated overs was nothing anybody wouldn’t savour!!
Hong Kong and UAE registered wins in the final group matches to finish 3rd and 4th in their group and go through to the play-off’s. Netherlands, who finished 2nd in Group A, will now face UAE, who finished 3rd in Group B. The winner of that match will face Ireland in the semi-final and qualify for next year’s World Cup. The other semi-final will see PNG face the winners of the match between Namibia and Oman, after the two finished 3rd in Group A and 2nd in Group B respectively.
Scotland and Hong Kong, who finished fourth in their respective groups, will now take part in the fifth-place play-off semi-finals and will face the defeated side in the Netherlands/UAE and Namibia/Oman matches, with the winner in each match claiming the final 2 spots for the T20 World Cup in Australia.
Brief Scores
PNG 118 all out in 19.3 overs (Norman Vanua 54, Emmanuel Bundi 4/18, Collins Obuya 2/17) beat Kenya 73 all out in 18.4 overs (Irfan Karim 29, Assad Vala 3/7, Nosaina Pokana 3/21) by 45 runs
Nigeria 81/8 in 20 overs (Ademola Onikoyi 18, Aizaz Khan 2/5, Mohammad Ghazanfar 2/11) lost to Hong Kong 82/5 in 7.1 overs (Kinchit Shah 25, Nizakat Khan 21, Daniel Ajekun 1/5) by 5 wickets
Jersey 141/7 in 20 overs (Nick Ferraby 41, Nick Greenwood 22, Mohammad Nadeem 4/23) beat Oman 127/9 in 20 overs (Zeeshan Maqsood 56, Elliot Miles 3/22, Dominic Blampied 3/27) by 14 runs
Scotland 130/8 in 20 overs (Matthew Cross 52, Pieter Seelaar 2/12, Brandon Glover 2/28) lost to Netherlands 131/6 in 17 overs (Ryan ten Doeschate 51 n.o, Mark Watt 3/18) by 4 wickets
UAE 154/5 in 20 overs (Muhammad Usman 89 n.o, Rameez Shahzad 27, Saad Bin Zafar 3/21) beat Canada 140/5 in 20 overs (Navneet Dhaliwal 41, Nicholas Kirton 37 n.o, Waheed Ahmed 3/21) by 14 runs
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