Scotland started their Cricket World Cup League Two series at Mannofield with a 64-run victory against the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Captain Matthew Cross – standing in for the injured Richie Berrington – won the toss and opted to bat in glorious sunshine.
Although they could have scored more, the Saltires reached 262 before being bowled out in the 49th over, with Calum MacLeod’s 76 the standout knock.
In defence of their total, Chris Sole’s three early wickets put the home side in control and Mark Watt’s four in the second half of the innings helped bowl UAE out for 198 in 42 overs.
Scotland, who face USA on Saturday, are second in the Cricket World Cup League 2 standings, eight points behind Oman, but with 11 games in hand.
Fast start
After a blistering start, Scotland’s innings was slowed by tidy bowling and fielding from the visitors.
Opening pair Kyle Coetzer and Craig Wallace raced to 46-0 after four overs.
Coetzer bludgeoned the first four balls of the innings from Kashif Daud to the boundary and added another four in the fourth over, while Wallace hit a six over long off in the same over.
But both were out cheaply having made good starts. Coetzer was caught at mid-off by Basil Hameed off the bowling of Sabir Ali for 23 in the eighth over.
Wallace made 35, but swept UAE skipper Ahmed Raza straight to Daud at leg gully in the 18th over.
In between, Ali had Chris McBride, who never looked settled at the crease, caught behind for three.
The star of Scotland’s innings was MacLeod, who made a patient 76 from 88 balls, but was LBW to Zahoor Khan in the 45th over as he looked to accelerate.
MacLeod shared a stand of 51 with Cross, who perished for 25 sweeping Hameed to Ali at leg gully.
With the score 130-4, Chris Greaves joined MacLeod and added a busy 26 before being bowled by Rohan Mustafa when trying to reverse sweep.
Greaves’ departure brought Aberdonian Michael Leask to the crease and he made a quickfire 39 from 25 balls, which included four boundaries.
Unfortunately Leask was caught by Chirag Suri running round at long on off the bowling of Khan in the 47th over.
The Scots added 18 for the last three wickets with Watt (10) bowled by Mustafa, Sole (4) and Hamza Tahir (0) snared by Khan, who was the pick of the UAE bowlers with 4-39.
Mustafa and Ali picked up two wickets apiece.
Early wickets for Saltires
Scotland made an excellent start in the field with Sole picking up wickets in the second, fourth and 10th overs.
First Muhammad Waseem edged to MacLeod at second slip for and then Vriitya Aravind was caught behind for four.
For his third wicket, Sole’s short ball was gloved by Chirag Suri and Cross took a superb one-handed catch down to his right.
CP Rizwan and Mustafa added 30 for the fourth wicket, but Leask had the former caught by MacLeod for 32 in the 17th over to make it 66-4.
Mustafa and Hameed then shared a stand of 65 and, just as the runs were starting to flow, Hameed chipped Watt to Coetzer at extra cover to relief pressure on the Saltires.
Watt then picked up two wickets in two balls in the 33rd over. Zawar Farid – who had hit Sole for a six over long on – edged to MacLeod at slip for 15 then Daud was bowled.
However, Mustafa managed to see off the hat-trick ball from the spinner.
Leask – who finished with 2-31 – had Raza caught by Wallace at deep midwicket for four. Sharif bowled for Khan for six and Watt cleaned up Ali for 5 to bowl UAE out for 198.
Mustafa was the pick of the visiting batters with 65 not out. Watt’s 4-30 and Sole’s 3-39 were the outstanding bowling efforts.
