Another enthralling day of action on day 2 of ICC World Cup Qualifiers saw Zimbabwe, Ireland and Scotland notch up their 2nd win in the group phase and move closer to qualifying for the Super Sixes phase of the tournament. ICC may not be televising the matches, but the action is keeping everyone engrossed through scoring websites/apps and social media platforms.
West Indies also got off the mark in their opening match against UAE, while Hong Kong suffered a major batting collapse to hand over their first match to the Scots on a platter. The match between Zimbabwe and Afghanistan went down to the wire (by every literal sense) as the host’s scrapped and scratched hard to edge over their fierce rivals in the past couple of seasons by a margin of only 2 runs!!
Papua New Guinea gave a spirited challenge to Ireland with Tony Ura becoming the 2nd Associate member player to score above 150+ in an innings. The bowlers also tried their level best but Ireland prevailed with experienced batting line-up as PNG fell short to register their first win in the event. The combination of Porterfield and Joyce ensured that Ireland did not panic during the chase which went to the final over of their innings.
Windies rode on dual centuries from Chris Gayle and Simon Hetmyer to post a mammoth total of 300+ on board and saw UAE respond in a equally belligerent fashion, but loss of wickets at crucial junctures marred their chase as they fell short by some margin but showed enough fight to pose a threat to other teams in their group. The fact that Holder picked up 5 wickets in the 6 wickets to fall for UAE shows that the others were not effective and that will be the focus point for Windies in their next group matches.
Hong Kong had a forgettable day as they posted the first under-100 score in the tournament and the bowlers did a commendable job in making a real fight in the match by picking up 6 wickets but the total was way too short to create an upset. Another 30-40 runs would have been real handy in there. Scotland skipper Kyle Coetzer stayed unbeaten to keep the nerves calm in the dressing room, which were getting pretty tensed with the wickets falling in such a small chase. Lot to ponder and work upon for Scots as and when they progress to Super Sixes.
Brief Scores:
Hong Kong 91 all out in 38.2 overs (Nizakat Khan 26, Tom Sole 4/15, Alasdair Evans 3/19, Mark Watt 2/23) lost to Scotland 92/6 in 23.3 overs (Kyle Coetzer 41 n.o, George Munsey 22, Ehsan Khan 3/29, Ehsan Nawaz 2/24) by 4 wickets
Papua New Guinea 235 all out in 50 overs (Tony Ura 151, Chad Soper 25, Andy McBrine 3/38, Boyd Rankin 2/41, Kevin O’Brien 2/53) lost to Ireland 237/6 in 49.1 overs (William Porterfield 111, Ed Joyce 53, Paul Stirling 27, Asad Vala 2/39, Alei Nao 1/34, Mahuru Dai 1/41) by 4 wickets
West Indies 357/4 in 50 overs (Simon Hetmyer 137, Chris Gayle 123, Shai Hope 35 retired hurt, Evin Lewis 31, Imran Haider 1/62, Rohan Mustafa 1/66) beat United Arab Emirates 297/6 in 50 overs (Rameez Shahzad 112 n.o, Shaiman Anwar 64, Adnan Mufti 45, Chirag Suri 38, Jason Holder 5/53) by 60 runs
Zimbabwe 196 all out in 43 overs (Brendan Taylor 89, Sikandar Raza 60, Rashid Khan 3/38, Mujeeb ur Rahman 3/49, Dawlat Zadran 2/17) beat Afghanistan 194 all out in 49.3 overs (Rahmat Shah 69, Mohammad Nabi 51, Blessing Muzarabani 4/47, Sikandar Raza 3/40, Brian Vitori 2/31) by 2 runs
ICC World Cup Qualifiers Points Table (After 2nd day’s play):
| GROUP A | |||||
| TEAM | Matches | Win | Loss | Points | Net Run-Rate |
| Ireland | 2 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 1.093 |
| West Indies | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1.2 |
| United Arab Emirates | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | -0.051 |
| Papua New Guinea | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | -0.8 |
| Netherlands | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | -2.268 |
| GROUP B | |||||
| TEAM | Matches | Win | Loss | Points | Net Run-Rate |
| Scotland | 2 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 1.453 |
| Zimbabwe | 2 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 1.18 |
| Afghanistan | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | -0.154 |
| Hong Kong | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | -2.095 |
| Nepal | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | -2.32 |
