The T20 World Cup Qualifiers have been nothing short of astonishing so far, with the action from the 7 days in the competition throwing up and down scenarios for all the participating team’s and such has been the uncertainty level, that still 12 out of the 14 team’s are in the running for the top spot in their respective groups for direct qualification in 2020 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup and for top 4 finish in the group to get into the play-off stage of the qualifiers to have a shot at the remaining 4 spots.
The resurgence of Hong Kong, Kenya and Namibia in the 2nd half of the group stages meant that none of the top spot leaders in the group could get away from the suiters behind them and instead are not stacked up with everyone in the points table with final round of group matches remaining with each other to either get into the safe zone or get knocked out of contention altogether.
Netherlands and Canada’s unbeaten run in the tournament came to a halt on the 7th day of the competiton, with them losing to Papua New Guinea and Hong Kong respectively. PNG, with the win moved ahead of the Dutch to gain the top spot in the group, while Hong Kong have created a big back-door entrance back into contention with a final group game against Nigeria remaining, which they will be expected to win to create more unrest among the rest.
UAE and Scotland won their 5th match in the tournament to stay well in contention for either a top finish or a top 4 finish in their respective groups, while the likes of Singapore, Ireland and Jersey now have to counter some crucial games to keep their hopes alive, such has been the closeness among all in the group in terms of points and number of matches left. It could all come down to NRR as well to differentiate between some of the team’s in the end to sort the 3rd and 4th places in the points table, when the group stages end.
Points Table (After Day 7)
Brief Scores (Days 6 & 7)
Bermuda 106/9 in 20 overs (Okera Bascome 37, Derrick Brangman 23 n.o, Bernard Scholtz 3/17, JJ Smit 2/18, Christi Viljoen 2/27) lost to Namibia 111/4 in 13.1 overs (Nikolaas Davin 37, Stephan Baard 27, Gerhard Erasmus 19 n.o, Kamau Leverock 3/19) by 6 wickets
Nigeria 71 all out in 19.5 overs (Daniel Ajekun 16, Aamir Kaleem 4/14, Bilal Khan 3/7) lost to Oman 72/3 in 7 overs (Jatinder Singh 48, Khawar Ali 13, Sylvester Okpe 1/4) by 7 wickets
Singapore 157/9 in 20 overs (Surendran Chandramohan 40, Aritra Dutta 33, Tim David 29, Lucas Oluoch 3/22, Elijah Otieno 3/29, Shem Ngoche 2/32) lost to Kenya 159/3 in 18.5 overs (Irfan Karim 71 n.o, Aman Gandhi 50, Amjad Mahboob 2/30) by 7 wickets
Canada 156/5 in 20 overs (Navneet Dhaliwal 69, Nitish Kumar 53, Boyd Rankin 2/32) beat Ireland 146/7 in 20 overs (Stuart Thompson 28 n.o, Paul Stirling 23, Saad Bin Zafar 2/31, Romesh Eranga 2/32) by 10 runs
Hong Kong 144/7 in 20 overs (Nizakat Khan 48, Scott McKechnie 40 n.o, Benjamin Ward 3/19, Ben Stevens 2/26) beat Jersey 136/9 in 20 overs (Ben Stevens 39, Corey Bisson 30 n.o, Ehsan Khan 2/18, Kinchit Shah 2/31) by 8 runs
Netherlands 126/7 in 20 overs (Timm van der Gugten 40 n.o, Pieter Seelaar 21 n.o, Charles Amini 2/34) lost to Papua New Guinea 127/5 in 19 overs (Assad Vala 37, Sese Bau 34 n.o, Roelof van der Merwe 2/27) by 5 wickets
Hong Kong 150/7 in 20 overs (Kinchit Shah 59 n.o, Waqas Barkat 27, Nitish Kumar 1/18) beat Canada 118/9 in 20 overs (Rizwan Cheema 20, Nasrulla Rana 3/25, Kyle Christie 2/23) by 32 runs
Nigeria 111/3 in 20 overs (Sesan Adedeji 51 n.o, Chimezie Onwuzulike 46 n.o, Ahmed Raza 1/15) lost to UAE 112/5 in 12.3 overs (Zawar Farid 55, Muhammad Usman 20 n.o, Sylvester Okpe 2/22) by 5 wickets
Scotland 204/4 in 20 overs (Calum MacLeod 74, George Munsey 51, Kamau Leverock 2/39) beat Bermuda 158/8 in 20 overs (Delray Rawlins 46, Kamau Leverock 43 n.o, Mark Watt 2/18) by 46 runs
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