Scotland fell tantalisingly short of their target against the West Indies losing by three runs in a high scoring match at the SCG.
West Indies batted first and Dwayne Smith and Chris Gayle got them off to a cautious start moving to 10 after 28 balls before the dangerous Gayle was removed by a superb delivery from Iain Wardlaw that caught the edge of his bat and Matt Cross accepted the catch.
Smith and Darren Bravo put on 44 for the second wicket before Evans who had come on first change got Smith to edge another catch to Cross and five runs later Samuels departed without troubling the scores to leave the West Indies on 59 for 3.
This brought Dinesh Ramdin to the crease and he produced the highest score in the West Indies Innings. He made 88 at just under a run a ball and his knock included six fours and one six.
He was well supported by Bravo (43) and Simmons (55) before he became the sixth wicket to fall with the score on 252.
Some later order hitting by Russell (24) and Sammy (36) saw the West Indies finish on a challenging 313 for 9.
Evans was once again the pick of the Scottish attack claiming 3 for 63 from his 10 over spell, with Davey picking up two wickets and Wardlaw and Haq one each.
Scotland got off to a solid start in reply with Coetzer and MacLeod putting on 75 for the first wicket before MacLeod was trapped in front by Russell for 32 in the fifteenth over.
Gardiner (7) and Machan (17) went cheaply but Coetzer continued to stroke the ball well finding the boundary at regular intervals as he took the attack to the West Indies before he was the fourth man out with the score on 184.
He fell four runs short of a deserved hundred and his inning included 14 fours.
Coleman was joined by Berrington and the pair continued to attack putting on a further 30 runs before Coleman perished failing to make his ground and was run out for 34.
Berrington was in superb form as he plundered runs and was being well supported by Matt Cross taking the Scots to 300 in the forty eighth over and the cusp of victory before Cross going for another big hit was caught on the leg side boundary by Bravo for 34.
Berrington fell two runs later run out for a brilliant 66 from only 44 balls to leave Scotland requiring 12 from 9 deliveries.
The tail however could not complete the task as Taylor and Haq were out going for the runs to see Scotland finish on 310 for 9.
Scotland will take confidence from this match and the win against Ireland in the previous warm up match as they now move on to the competition proper.
They now travel to Dunedin where they will meet hosts New Zealand on Tuesday 17 February at the University Oval in their first match.
SCORECARD
| Toss won by | West Indies XI |
| Umpires | JD Cloete - PR Reiffel - Aleem Dar |
| Home Side | (neutral) |
| Comment | Players per side 15 (11 batting, 11 fielding) West Indies: JL Carter, SJ Benn, SS Cottrell, JE Taylor did not bat Scotland: PL Mommsen*, SM Sharif, MA Leask, I Wardlaw did not bat |
| Batsman | Fieldsman | Bowler | Runs | Bls | 4s | 6s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DR Smith | c MH Cross | b AC Evans | 45 | 47 | 5 | 2 |
| CH Gayle | c MH Cross | b I Wardlaw | 1 | 12 | 0 | 0 |
| DM Bravo | c RD Berrington | b RM Haq | 43 | 72 | 4 | 0 |
| MN Samuels | c MH Cross | b JH Davey | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| D Ramdin+ | c KJ Coetzer | b AC Evans | 88 | 86 | 8 | 1 |
| LMP Simmons | lbw | b AC Evans | 55 | 47 | 5 | 2 |
| AD Russell | c AC Evans | b JH Davey | 24 | 14 | 3 | 1 |
| DJG Sammy | run out RML Taylor | 36 | 17 | 4 | 1 | |
| NO Miller | run out RML Taylor | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| KAJ Roach | not out | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
| JO Holder* | dnb | - | ||||
| extras | (b0 lb3 w16 nb1) | 20 | ||||
| TOTAL | 9 wickets for | 313 |
| FOW |
|---|
| 1-10(CH Gayle) 2-54(DR Smith) 3-59(MN Samuels) 4-134(DM Bravo) 5-251(LMP Simmons) |
| 6-252(D Ramdin) 7-305(AD Russell) 8-312(DJG Sammy) 9-313(NO Miller) |
| Bowler | O | M | R | W | wd | nb |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I Wardlaw | 10 | 2 | 61 | 1 | 1 | - |
| RML Taylor | 8 | 0 | 52 | 0 | 2 | - |
| AC Evans | 10 | 0 | 63 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| JH Davey | 10 | 0 | 55 | 2 | 3 | - |
| RM Haq | 10 | 0 | 66 | 1 | 1 | - |
| RD Berrington | 2 | 0 | 13 | 0 | 1 | - |
| Batsman | Fieldsman | Bowler | Runs | Bls | 4s | 6s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KJ Coetzer | c AD Russell | b NO Miller | 96 | 106 | 14 | 0 |
| CS Macleod | lbw | b AD Russell | 32 | 39 | 5 | 0 |
| HJW Gardiner | c JO Holder | b SJ Benn | 7 | 17 | 0 | 0 |
| MW Machan | c SS Cottrell | b SJ Benn | 17 | 18 | 1 | 1 |
| FRJ Coleman | run out SS Cottrell | 34 | 35 | 3 | 0 | |
| RD Berrington | run out AD Russell | 66 | 44 | 6 | 1 | |
| MH Cross+ | c DM Bravo | b KAJ Roach | 39 | 31 | 4 | 0 |
| JH Davey | not out | 9 | 7 | 1 | 0 | |
| RML Taylor | c CH Gayle | b AD Russell | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| RM Haq | c MN Samuels | b KAJ Roach | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| AC Evans | not out | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| extras | (b1 lb5 w2 nb2) | 10 | ||||
| TOTAL | 9 wickets for | 310 |
| FOW |
|---|
| 1-75(CS Macleod) 2-104(HJW Gardiner) 3-124(MW Machan) 4-184(KJ Coetzer) |
| 5-214(FRJ Coleman) 6-300(MH Cross) 7-302(RD Berrington) 8-302(RML Taylor) |
| 9-307(RM Haq) |
| Bowler | O | M | R | W | wd | nb |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KAJ Roach | 8 | 0 | 59 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| SS Cottrell | 10 | 1 | 73 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| AD Russell | 8 | 0 | 32 | 2 | - | - |
| DJG Sammy | 3 | 0 | 21 | 0 | - | - |
| SJ Benn | 10 | 0 | 47 | 2 | - | - |
| MN Samuels | 4 | 0 | 23 | 0 | - | - |
| NO Miller | 7 | 0 | 49 | 1 | - | - |