Scotland can almost catch sight of a place at T20 World Cup next year but only if they peer over the shoulders of the Netherlands.
The two sides will meet in Abu Dhabi today with a place at the finals in Bangladesh up for grabs, with the Scots hoping for a repeat of their victory in a qualifying group match against the Dutch last week which was won by 15 runs.
It has proven to be a small win in the run-up to today's meeting since Scotland are able to enjoy a psychological edge. By contrast, the Dutch must pick themselves up for one final effort at qualifying after a defeat by United Arab Emirates which blew their first chance to qualify.
They face stiff challenge to recover today, not least since their opponents have been buttressed by four wins in a row, including one over Italy yesterday. "The guys have been brilliant in the last few games and we know what we have to do," said Kyle Coetzer, the Scotland captain.
"After beating Italy we had to wait for a few hours to find out if it would be UAE or Holland that we would meet. Now that we know we can make our plans. We put in a commanding performance against them in the group stages when it really mattered and came away with the win. We're confident we can do it again if we focus on doing what has been working so well for us."
The Scots offered a glimpse at what that involves as they knocked aside the Italians. Calum MacLeod called it an almost perfect performance, with the batsman scoring his third half-century of the qualifying tournament as the Scots looked cool amid the Abu Dhabi heat.
The Uddingston batsman top-scored with 56, while opening partner Richie Berrington also reached fifty in a seven-wicket win. Chasing 125 for victory, the opening pair took the tally to 112 before departing within the space of three balls. Matt Machan would then suffer a rare drop in form before Coetzer and Michael Leask sealed the win with 15 balls to spare. "It was almost the perfect performance," said MacLeod. "If we want to be really fussy it would have been nice if Richie and I had stayed in to win it by 10 wickets. That would have been the complete performance but I thought the bowlers set it up really well on a wicket that didn't look too easy to bowl on early on."
Safy Sharif got the ball rolling when he bowled Italy's Gareth Berg and then removed Peter Petricola, while Neil Carter also picked up two wickets and Majid Haq conceded just 14 runs in his four overs as Italy were held to a score of just 125-8. The Scots could then attack and will now hope that similar form follows against the Dutch.
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