Barras lose to Scotland

NORMAN Vanua, pictured, came close to rescuing Papua New Guinea (142/9) in their third match of the T20 World Cup Qualifiers against Scotland (146/6) in Dubai yesterday.
The paceman entered the fray in the 15th over with the Barramundis’ run chase reeling at 87/5 and he proceeded to thrash the Scottish attack, hitting 33 runs of just 18 balls (including two boundaries and two sixes) until he was dismissed with the second ball of the final over by Josh Davey.
Scotland went on to win the Group A thriller by four runs.
Earlier Scotland captain Kyle Coetzer (54) chose to make the most of conditions at the ICC Academy oval batting first and helping his side to post 146 runs for the loss of six wickets.
Wicketkeeper Matthew Cross hit 40 off 23 balls to ensure the Scots put on a competitive total.
PNG bowlers struggled to stem the flow of runs with medium pacer Nosaina Pokana (1-41), in particular, going for runs off his four overs.
Set 147 runs for victory, PNG openers Assad Vala (20) and Tony Ura (17) were kept in check.
Ura, a hero from game two, was tied down before being stumped off spinner Hamza Tahir (3-24) after facing 27 balls.
Lega Siaka added 31 runs off 24 balls and looked like he had the measure of the Scots before being bowled by Mark Watt in the 13th over.
Aside from Vanua’s effort with the bat, all-rounder Jason Kila’s 10 was the only double digit score by a middle order batsman with Charles Amini Jr (9), Sese Bau (4) and Riley Hekure (2) all failing to make an impression.
Despite the loss, PNG remain on top of the group with four points thanks to their superior run rate of 2.673 followed by three teams — Netherlands (1.85), Scotland (0.55) and Singapore (0.226) — also on the same number of points.
PNG play the Dutch on Thursday followed by Singapore on Friday before completing the group stage against Kenya on Sunday.