Scotland’s George Munsey came within a whisper of racking up his maiden List A ton as his side held off a late charge from Oman in the deciding match of their three-match series at Al Amarat.
Munsey came to the wicket at the start of the 38th over with Scotland’s score on 153-3, and the Oxford-born left-hander proceeded to maul the Oman bowlers, slamming 96 runs off 43 balls with seven fours and nine sixes.
His highest List A score came at a strike rate of 223.25, which was more than three times his career strike rate in the format.
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Munsey was caught with the score on 294-4 with eight balls of the innings left. Scotland finished on 303-5 off their 50 overs, with Pretoria-born Richie Berrington (72 not out off 80 balls) and Calum MacLeod (64 off 80 balls) helping to beef up the Scottish scorecard.
Mohammad Nadeem (2-16) and Kaleemullah (2-60) did the most damage with the ball for Oman.
Tasked with chasing at just over six runs to the over, Oman got their innings off to a flyer, the openers adding 31 runs in the first six overs, but the pressure to keep the scoreboard ticking along soon told as they found themselves on 83-4 after 16.3 overs.
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Moonamchery Michal (34 off 59 balls), Sandeep Goud (49 off 63) and Khurram Nawaz (30 off 38) kept the chase alive through the middle order to get Oman to 199-7 off 40 overs, with a lot of work still to be done in the final 10 overs.
Not willing to go down without a fight, the Oman tail wagged superbly, with Fayyaz Butt
(45 off 39 balls) and Badal Singh (30 not out off 24 balls) keeping their hopes alive, while Kaleemullah slashed a defiant three sixes off the last seven deliveries of the innings to end on 19 not out off just six balls (S/R 316.66) to take Oman to 288-8 off their 50 overs.
The 15-run victory gave Scotland a 2-1 series win, Safyaan Sharif (3-65) and Berrington (2-44) being up to the task of keeping the Oman batsmen in check with the ball.
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Photo: Nigel Roddis – IDI/IDI via Getty Images
