SCOTLAND have lost their ICC Intercontinental Cup final against Afghanistan following a disastrous second innings.
Scotland were bowled out for 82 on the third day of the contest before Afghanistan reached their target of 124 with seven wickets to spare. Scotland had gone into the second innings with a 41-run advantage but only two players scored more than 10 runs and three were out for ducks to leave Afghanistan to ease to victory in the 27th over.
Scotland, who were looking to emulate their success in the inaugural 2004 tournament, resumed the Dubai contest on 64 for six following a poor start to proceedings on Friday which saw Fraser Watts as their top scorer with 28 runs. And there was to be no sustained resilience lower down the batting order.
Richie Berrington had been one of Scotland’s better batsmen in the first innings but he was caught out for 10 by Asghar Stanikzai off Hamid Hassan to leave them struggling further.
Mirwais Ashraf soon finished them off by taking the wickets of George Drummond, Majid Haq and Ross Lyons for a combined total of seven runs, with Simon Smith the last man standing on 10.
Neil McCallum, who had followed his first-innings century with a duck, offered some crumb of hope with a fine catch to dismiss Karim Sadiq for seven off the bowling of Matthew Parker, but Afghanistan were not to be denied.
The other opening batsman, Shabir Noori, hit 35, and Parker’s fifth wicket of the match, an lbw to end captain Nawroz Mangal’s stand at 17, came too late to give Scotland even a fighting chance.
The tournament’s top run-scorer, Mohammad Shahzad, struck an unbeaten 56 off 62 balls to help ease the Afghans home with a second-innings total of 124 for three.
Hassan took the man-of-the-match award courtesy of his eight wickets as Afghanistan won the trophy for the first time.