Papua New Guinea responded well to the pressure and defeated Scotland in the 2nd WCL match @Amini Park by 5 wickets and reclaim their 2nd position in the WCL Championship points table.
Scotland, put into bat first, were bowled out for a low 203 in 49.2 overs. Scotland’s innings rallied around Matthew Cross’s knock of 91 runs off 120 deliveries as PNG bowlers reduced them to 80/4 in the 17th over. Norman Vanua (2/36) & John Reva (2/35) bowled well to restrict the run-scoring but it was the spin combination of Mahuru Dai (2/19 off 10) & Assad Vala (1/31 off 10), who did the main damage to Scotland’s run scoring.
It was evident in the painstaking innings of George Munsey (22 off 65), which showed the dominance of PNG’s spin bowlers on a slow track.
Scotland bowlers too started well in PNG’s innings, and picked up regular wickets to leave them at 115/4 in the 31st over. Assad Vala played a patient captain’s knock of 49 off 73 deliveries to keep the team in the hunt in a low scoring chase.
However, the man in form for PNG in the past few months, Mahuru Dai played the innings the team needed as he plundered 63 runs off only 54 deliveries and remained unbeaten and along with Dogodo Bau (14 n.o off 45) took PNG to a crucial win by 5 wickets with 2 overs to spare.
