ICC Men's Cricket World Cup League 2

[The Professor]

There has been a curiously contradictory nature to the last three games in this competition.


First off Namibia defied the odds to win by 110 runs against top of the table Oman. They then went on to lose to the United Arab Emirates by 3 wickets before they themselves went on to lose to Oman again. So in short it its bloody hard to figure out whose the better team here.

One guy who has had a very decent run of games though is Zahoor Khan who has picked up 10 wickets in the last 3 games including 4-51 today.

Games continue on Friday

[The Professor]

First off Namibia beat Oman again, the second time they've challenged the table toppers in this leg of the tournament. This was despite another decent performance from Shoaib Khan who averages 53.8 across this leg of the tournament.


That match marks the end of thus house of the tournament with the next stage starting .....tomorrow.....in the same venue....and one of the same teams. The UAE wave goodbye to Namibia and Oman and bid a warm welcome to Nepal and Papua New Guinea. All very odd.

[The Professor]

The United Arab Emirates are continuing their strong home leg of the World Cup League 2 by winning their fourth game out of 6 today against Nepal. This has come after they registered a 7 wicket win against Papua New Guinea on Tuesday. They are now second on the table; 18 points behind Oman (who have played 13 more games than them) and 2 points above Scotland (who have played 3 fewer.)

Basil Hameed has been in exceptionally good form after getting two fourfers on the trot, taking him up to joint 9th in the tournament with 20.

Nepal beat Papua New Guinea in the other non-UAE game.

[The Professor]

Gimme a I



Gimme a C



Gimme a C



Gimme a M...



Agh....this could take ages. The ICC Men's Cricket World Cup League 2 is back with Oman, Papua New Guinea and Scotland all having faced off twice over the last two days.



'Table-toppers' Oman won their first game of this leg against Papua New Guinea. PNG put up a spirited fight when they put on 224 in their opening salvo but Jatinder Aingh's 116 ball 118* was just too good for too long.



Scotland have some games to make up having played the second fewest in the table but have chalked up two wins. First a huge one against Papua New Guinea on Saturday and a more narrow one against Oman yesterday. Papua New Guinea are now winless and now remain bottom of the table.

[The Professor]

With their third victory in a row, Scotland have leapfrogged the UAE, who have played 3 games more than them, and taken second place. This time it was Papua New Guinea who were put to the sword with relative comfort.


Scotland put on 287-5, their highest in the 15 games they have played. However it was their bowlers who impressed the most, especially Gavin Main who got his maiden ODI fivefer to gut the middle order and tail.

The 123 run victory was the third largest margin of victory in the tournament; the largest being the reverse fixture 4 days ago.

[The Professor]

Despite the best efforts of Kashyap Prajapati who registered his highest ODI score, Scotland got a fourth win on the bounce to consolidate their place in second place. Oman, long time leaders of the table, will be looking over their shoulders. They have a chance to push on against lacklustre Papua New Guinea tomorrow in the final game of this leg.

[The Professor]

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, this old show rolls back in town…and this time the town is Glasgow. Scotland, who had a great spell in the least leg, are in second place where the visitors, Namibia and Nepal, are 5th and 6th respectively. They will be hoping to make some headway on the United States who occupy the last qualification place.
The opening game between Scotland and Namibia went to form with Scotland running out convincing winners – however it was today’s game that looked a little more edgy. Namibia won the toss and elected to bat. They put on 220 despite the ever-impressive Sandeep Lamichhane’s 4-54. Unfortunately the Nepalese bowlers couldn’t follow through – a trend that has continued throughout the tournament. There are 2 Nepalese bowlers in the top 10 highest wicket takers but they have no batters in the Top 25 highest run scorers. They were all out for 180.

Matches continue through until Sunday when Nepal and Namibi leave to be replaced by the United States and the UAE – two top 4 teams. That could be a real test of Scotland’s metal.

[The Professor]

After stating on Monday how underwhelming Nepal’s batters have been they showed a clinical display today in chasing down Scotland’s less than imposing target of 144.

Only one Scottish batter put on more than 20 – and he was batting at number 9 – which tell you the woeful tale of Scotland’s batting. In contrast, Aarif Sheikh who is Nepal’s talisman and highest run scorer top-scored for Nepal in the chase with a score of 71 in 62 ball to help pull off the upset.

Tomorrow Scotland will seek to bounce back against Namibia.

[The Professor]

Scotland got their much needed win against Namibia today….but it did not come easy.

Namibia batted first and put on 215-7 with Gavin Main being the main thorn in their sides. After impressing earlier in the week with the bat. Gavin’s main strength came to the fore today as he registered 3-38 including 2 in successive overs.

Scotland did not make their lives easy. Initially they were 3-1 before a spirited second wicket partnership. They then went from 80-2 to 117-6 but had just enough in the tank to edge their way to victory in the penultimate over.

A win is a win but with much bigger matches around the corner Scotland are going to need to step it up.

[The Professor]

Scotland were certainly the winners of this round of this competition; winning 3 games with Namibia winning 2 and Nepal with just a solitary win.

Scotland rounded off their competition with a win against Nepal. Hamza Tahir was the hit man as his 4 wickets limited Nepal to 128 in just 35 overs. In the chase, Scotland turned it into a T20 as they chased it down in a ball under 20 overs.

Despite the 6 games, nobody has made any progress in the table.

The action remains in Scotland for the next leg in early August where UAE and America come and play.

[The Professor]

The second leg of the Scottish section of the ICC men’s Cricket World Cup League 2 tournament has begun poorly for the United Arab Emirates. On a blustery day in Aberdeen where a long pause in the game was caused by both sight screens being blown down so violently that thy snapped in half, the United States of America, got their first win in their last four games and inflicted the UAE to their second successive loss to the Yanks.

Monak Patel’s score of 85 from 98 balls provided the spine to the USA’s chase of 253 that went right down to the wire. A late cluster of wickets where the States went from 231-5 to 250-9 made it riskier than they would have liked but the tail had just enough to hold it together.

The game’s continue throughout next weej with Scotland versus America the next fixture on Saturday.

[The Professor]

It was the battle of the two centurions - however it was the batter who scored the fewer runs that prevailed in the end.


Aaron Jones' 123 made up a fair whack of the American team total of 295. In reply Scotland made things seem slightly easier courtesy of a slower but still impressive score of 117 as they chased it down with 14 balls remaining.

Scotland play the UAE tomorrow.

[The Professor]

After doing so well in the earlier stages of the competition, UAE have really gone off the boil of late. This has been marked by them losing by the 13th largest margin of the tournament as they were rifled out for 168 chasing Scotland's 254.


After yesterday's batter reliant game, today's game was dominated by Scotland bowler Mark Watt whose 5-33 was also 13th (again!) Best bowling figures in an innings.

UAE and USA face off tomorrow.

[The Professor]

Defying national stereotypes, Scotland was the only British country who had an unaffected day of cricket today – and the Americans took advantage of that by downing the host nation in a thriller. Scotland can lay their loss squarely at the door of their established batters. 4 of their top 5 made a total of 20 runs…. the fact that the other one made 133 softened that blow rather. Callum MacLeod came in at 31-3 and then held everything together to make it a decent total on the day. MacLeod became the 17th man to have five or more innings scoring 133 or more in ODI cricket history. In the ranking, he is the sole Associate player, placing him with some extremely distinguished company.

The chase was competitive throughout and it looked like America were letting it slip away at the halfway mark but a couple of big overs put them back on track. It was all still to play for in the final over, where America needed 15 to win – but after a first ball 6 followed by two boundaries it was game over.

And thus endeth the Scottish leg with Scotland in second place, the USA in 3rd and the UAE in 4th. Oman still have a 4 point lead at the top of the table.

[The Professor]

The latest round of this competition….which I assume has no end….has been played out between host Namibia, Papua New Guinea and the United States.
The USA were the strongest team on paper and so it came to pass as they won 3 games whilst Namibia won 2. Papua New Guinea leave Namibia winless.

The tone was set early on when Namibia humiliated Papua New Guinea by getting them all out for 107 and knocking off the total in 15.1 overs. The 209 balls remaining in the game is the second most from the 114 (!!!) that have been played in this tournament.
The only notable achievement for Papua New guinea in this leg was a score of 94 from Asad Vala that represents the 35th highest score in the competition and the second highest by a PNG player. He is only bettered by….himself when he got 104 vs Namibia in September 2019 (!!!) That score takes him to 4th place on the run-scoring table. 149 from America’s Monak Patel sees him take the lead for highest run scorer with 1219 from his 35 games.

In other news, Tangeni Lungameni got the tournaments second 6fer in Namibia’s win against (you guess it) Papua New Guinea. The highest active wicket taker overall was America’s Saurabh Netravalkar who got 4 wickets to take his haul to 58. He has scome way to go to overhaul Oman’s Bilal Khan with 76.

Matches continue in Namibia from Thursday when Scotland and Nepal will faced the hosts.