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World T20 2021 Scotland Thrash Oman Remain Unbeaten To Qualify For Super 12 As Group Topper

World T20 2021 | Scotland thrash Oman, remain unbeaten to qualify for Super 12 as group topper

Scottish skipper Kyle Coetzer found form as his team thrashed home team Oman by eight wickets to remain unbeaten throughout Round 1 and qualify for Super 12 as group toppers. This is also the first time ever that a Scottish team has moved further than Round 1 in a World Cup.

Courtesy of this win, Scotland moved to Group 2 of the Super 12 and will be placed alongside India, Pakistan, New Zealand, Afghanistan and a team that would qualify from Group A of Round 1, which would be decided on Friday.

Chasing a modest total of 123, Coetzer, who had been searching form for the last two games finally found it and hit a 28 ball 41. His opening partnership of 33 with George Munsey was a relatively better start for the men in purple.

Matthew Cross, who came after the fall of the first wicket, remained at the crease till the very end and built a partnership of unbeaten 48 with Richie Berrington who scored a quickfire 31 off 21 balls to get the chase done with as soon as possible. For Oman, Khawar Ali and Fayyaz Butt picked one wicket each.

Earlier in the evening, after winning the toss Oman skipper Zeeshan Maqsood decided to bat first. However, the team had a horrendous start and courtesy of a mixup between the two openers Jatinder Singh, the most dynamic Omani batter got run out for nought. The men in red couldn’t really recover from that and even after Aqib Ilyas’ 37 and Maqsood’ 34, could only manage to get to 122 losing all 10 wickets on the way.

In fact, only three Omani players were able to cross the single digit. For Scots, Josh Davey was once again the pick of the bowlers with figures of 3-25 from four overs.

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It’s about resetting the clock and the mind: David Miller dwells upon advice of great friend Amla

David Miller, the senior-most player in the current South African T20 World Cup squad has dwelled upon the advice of a good friend and former Proteas skipper Hashim Amla to find inspiration ahead of the start of their World Cup campaign. "I had the privilege to play with him [Amla] for many, many years and I suppose what I have learnt from him is to not let failure get you down. We are striving for consistency in performance and, off the field, trying to be a consistent person as well,” Miller was quoted as saying to ESPNCricinfo. But how being a nice person according to Amla’s advice helps? To answer this, the 32-year-old Miller said, "The famous old saying is that you are only as good as your last game, but Hashim always said to me (you're only as good as) your next game. It's about resetting the clock and the mind, and trying to control and really be in the present.” "That's what I have really enjoyed about Hashim and his influence, being nice and calm, being a pillar of strength; the silent assassin. He was about getting the job done but more so, being nice and consistent as a person. It has been a good journey with him and I still keep in touch with him and will continue to do that during this World Cup for any advice,” added the Proteas who has played 90 T20Is so far. South Africa hasn’t been able to win a World title ever and now with New Zealand winning the World Test championship and England having won the ODI and T20I World Cups, the Proteas remain the only major team without the silverware. Can they do something different this time? Only time will tell.

West Indies women to tour Pakistan ahead of World Cup qualifier

It has come as a breath of fresh air for Pakistan Cricket as after New Zealand and England cancelling their tours of the country citing security reasons, Cricket West Indies confirmed that their Senior Women’s team would tour Pakistan for a three-match ODI series to be played from November 8 to 14. The tour comes ahead of an important World Cup qualifying tournament to be hosted by Zimbabwe from November 21 to December 5 where both West Indies and Pakistan would be fighting it out against eight other teams for three spots in the 2022 World Cup to be hosted by New Zealand. "This reciprocal tour to Pakistan is an important part of our preparation plans ahead of the World Cup qualifying tournament that is scheduled to take place in Zimbabwe in mid-November," Jonny Graves, CEO of Cricket West Indies said in an official press release. "This tour to Pakistan will give the team the chance to play in different conditions compared to the Caribbean and have more high-level competitive cricket ahead of aiming to secure one of the three qualifying spots available for the Women's Cricket World Cup next year,” he added. All the matches will be played at National Stadium in Karachi and security was definitely a question that was raised after this announcement. Addressing that Graves said, "The security plan arranged by the PCB is the same high level that the West Indies men's and women's teams received when they last toured Pakistan in 2018 and 2019, respectively.”

Ashes 2021 | Nathan Lyon hopeful of Stokes’ presence in the series

Australian off-spinner Nathan Lyon is hopeful that at some stage of the upcoming Ashes down under, English all-rounder Ben Stokes would join his team. Stokes has been out of action since July this year. Firstly it was the finger injury that kept him out of India Tests, and later on, he clarified that mentally he was not in the right space to be able to give his best on the field. "I'm expecting him to come,” Lyon said ahead of his side New South Wales’ Sheffield Shield game next week. “You want to play against the best players in the world. Stokesy is the best all-rounder in the world. He's an x-factor, a game-changer, and you want to play against these sort of players," added the finger spinner in his chat with Cricket.com.au Getting concussed while practising, Lyon, who is stuck on 399 wickets in his Test career was in danger of missing out on the game against Victoria starting October 26. But now ready to play, asked if he had anything up his sleeves for the upcoming season, Lyon said he has developed a couple of mystery balls. “A couple of mystery balls always got a couple of mystery balls. That's been the beauty about this pre-season, it's been my first ever proper pre-season. I've been able to do a lot of fitness work and a lot of skills work. I've already started looking at a couple of England's batters, so that's exciting,” said the 33-year-old.

World T20 2021 | Shakib special help Bangladesh drub PNG by 84 runs to book Super 12 spot

It was as impressive a performance as was expected from an ICC ranked-six nation in the World T20 rankings. Bangladesh demolished Papua New Guinea by a huge margin of 84 runs to book their birth in Super 12. In which group would they be placed will be found out after the evening game between Oman and Scotland which has now become a virtual qualifier as the winner would go through. Shakib Al Hasan was once again the hero for Bangladesh, especially with the ball as he finished with figures of 4/9 in his four overs spell and also equalled Pakistan legend Shahid Afridi’s record for most wickets in T20 World Cup history. The Bangladesh all-rounder now has 34 scalps in 28 World Cup games. Chasing a target of 182 set up by the Tigers was always going to be difficult for an Associate nation like PNG. However, with the kind of fight they showed in their last game against Scotland, it was hoped that they would show some fight in this game as well. However, in trying to keep up with the required run rate right from the word go, the Barramundis lost too many wickets early on. In fact, the batting performance was so dismal that no other batter apart from wicket-keeper batter Kiplin Doriga, who top-scored with an unbeaten 46 and bowling all-rounder Chad Soper (11) got into double figures. Apart from Shakib, fast bowlers Mohammad Saifuddin and Taskin Ahmed picked two wickets each while Mahedi Hasan also got a wicket. Earlier in the day, after winning the toss, Bangladesh chose to bat first in not only a must-win game but in a match in which they had to win by a big margin to qualify for the Super 12. Though Naim Sheikh got out on the very first ball and Bangladesh could only get 40 odd from the Powerplay, some great hitting by skipper Mahmudullah, who hit his sixth T20I half-century and first ever in a World Cup game, Bangladesh managed to get to 181 in their 20 overs. Along with Mahmudullah, Shakib (46) Liton Das (29) and Afif Hossain (21*) were among the runs as well.