Disaster.

The perfect word to sum up when your in-form batsman is run out in the first over of the chase without facing a ball. His partner, Richie Berrington, had struggled to get the first couple of balls away; the third he hit back straight, a smidgen too close to the bowler. Malachi Jones dived in, rolling the ball towards the stumps, past the despairing dive of Calum MacLeod. It looked close from the stands but, as everyone turned to the square leg umpire, his finger slowly, tragically, was raised.

"We've got to try to run our quick singles," said the captain Kyle Coetzer, defending his players. "It was a good piece of fielding by the bowler, but we've got to try to stick to our guns and play how we have been playing. That's the nature of T20 cricket. They came out and chanced their arm and things went for them a little bit at the start."

Bermuda have been known to produce cricketing magic. Who can forget the portly figure of Dwayne Leverock diving to his right before taking an astonishing one-handed catch and wheeling away before ­slowing, out of puff? In the second over of Scotland's reply, just after MacLeod had suffered his damaging run out, that catch was bettered by one of his countrymen.

Matt Machan clubbed the ball straight down the ground. Derrick Brangman leapt from his position at mid-on and snatched the whizzing shot out of the air with his left hand some four feet above his head.

Scotland had lost their grip on the match, but slowly, patiently, worked their way back into it, with Berrington (29) and Coetzer (37) contributing healthily. They were helped by some slack fielding from their opponents, who - that double burst of athleticism in the opening exchanges aside - were sloppy and dropped a couple of catches.

But Berrington fell first, clean bowled, with Brangman doing the damage again, this time with the ball in hand. The Bermudan later also had Coetzer stumped, two balls after Taylor was bowled by Jacobi Robinson. Suddenly, with the 16th over in its infancy, Scotland had two new batsmen at the crease and were five wickets down.

From then on, nothing went their way. Every other batsman failed to score double figures on what is admittedly a notoriously tricky pitch to chase: the outfield was lush, but also painfully slow. Each wicket that fell was greeted by echoing howls and whoops from the Islanders' bench, a scattering of locals, and the Netherlands players being the only other spectators. Scotland were all out for 131, 19 runs short of their target.

Earlier, the Bermuda innings had gone much the same way for the ­bowlers: they started poorly, before shackling the batsmen and recovering to take five wickets before slipping again. Dion Stovell made a brisk 29 off 20 balls before he was caught by Macleod off the economical Haq. The 41-year-old Lionel Cann - who has a daughter called India and a son named Sachin - made 27, then was bowled by Gordon Goudie. Late hitting from Allen Douglas II and Kwame Tucker took the Bermudans to 149 for seven.

Afghanistan, who were beaten by the Dutch yesterday, await tomorrow at the same venue - their bearded analyst looked on studiously as Scotland collapsed - and the atmosphere if nothing else will be different, bolstered by a minor, raucous host of Afghan supporters. The toss might again be crucial. "They are good opposition," admitted Coetzer. "But we can't sit on our heels. We've got to go out there and play the game we know we're capable of playing."