Scotland and Netherlands share the honours

Top Associate Nations Scotland and fellow European nation the Netherlands shared the ICC world T20 qualifiers Trophy after rain played spoilsport in all important clash at Malahide in the Irish capital of Dublin. Earlier in the day the third place play off between the hosts Ireland and Hong Kong too was called off due to heavy downpours, with Ireland bagging the third spot automatically.

The finalists  Scotland and the Netherlands played some exquisite T20 cricket in the tournament so far to bag spots in the summit clash but the rain gods eventually had the final say. In the road to the final the Netherlands had beaten Ireland in the Semi Finals with an all round performance. Mudassa Bukhari snared the Irish with some old fashioned short balls to bundle them out for a paltry 128 and then followed it up with a stellar chase as the skipper Peter Borren and Ben Cooper took the Dutch to the tournament’s final, leaving the hosts Ireland behind for the first time in the tournament’s history. The Irish previously ended runner up to Afghanistan in 2010 and then won back to back editions of the tournament in 2012 and in 2013.

Scotland too reached the final on the back of a big win against Hong Kong, with Kyle Coetzer and Matthew Cross playing prominent roles in the modest chase of 117 runs, but the Scottish heroes were the pace duo of Alasdair Evans and Shafyan Sharif who shared 3 wickets each to help Scotland make the final, and eventually the joint winners.