SCOTLAND captain Kyle Coetzer lamented “a tough day at the office” as his side lost to Namibia by five wickets in their latest World Cup warm-up match in Dubai.
The Saltires had been unbeaten in six games during this tour of the Middle East ahead of next week’s T20 World Cup. But they finally fell short, posting just 137 that Namibia easily chased down with more than two overs to spare.
The highlight for Scotland was another half-century from in-form batter Richie Berrington who made 61 from 46 balls after the top three all failed to fire.
Coetzer said: “It’s a tough day at the office but there were still some good performances. It wasn’t the result we were after, but nonetheless it was a good run out in the field and a good test to put our batting line up under pressure.
“We still put on a defendable total, Berrington being key to that again, but with good contributions from Craig Wallace and a few others throughout to show the depth that we have in our line-up.
“It’s not always a bad thing losing a game. It keeps us on our toes, the guys are playing well and I fully expect them to bounce back when the World Cup period starts.”
Craig Williams was the star man in Namibia’s reply with a half-century, while opener Stephan Baard also chipped in with a valuable 39 from 41 balls.
On a tough day for Scotland’s bowlers, Mark Watt was the stand-out with two wickets for just 11 runs from his four overs.
Head coach Shane Burger said: “It was a below par performance in terms of the standards and expectations that we’ve set, but we’ve taken a lot of learnings from today.
“It’s always tough to go back-to-back especially when you’ve played an afternoon game and then have a morning game the next day in these extreme conditions. But that’s absolutely no excuse. We need to make sure that we are able to manage that which is something that we have done pretty well over the last month.
“I thought Richie was excellent with the bat. He really anchored the innings in a tough position and showed his class. Then from a bowling point of view, Mark once again was fantastic with the ball.
“Namibia are a dangerous team, we always knew that and that we’d have to bring one of our better games, which we just didn’t do.
“Credit to them, we’ll take a lot of learnings from this and it will keep us on our toes for the upcoming games.”
Scotland have two final warm-up games against the Netherlands on Tuesday and then Namibia again on Thursday before their World Cup opener against Bangladesh next Sunday.
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