Scotland Women 169 (50/50 Ov – RV Scholes 35, P Siaka 6 for 19) beat

Papua New Guinea Women 162 (50/50 Ov – B Tau 46, K Anderson 3 for 35) by 7 runs.

Jake Perry writes:

Scotland claimed their first win of the ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifier with a thrilling seven run victory over Papua New Guinea at the Mercantile Cricket Association Ground in Colombo. A tight display in the field featuring two crucial run-outs and three wickets for Kari Anderson was enough to see the Scots home and keep alive their hopes of progressing to the Super Six phase of the competition.

Captain Abbi Aitken was delighted with the character shown by her side.

“It was a tough game,” she said. “It went right to the wire which is never easy but credit to the girls for sticking at it and keeping cool heads.”

“PNG won the toss and wanted to bowl first but we always had the intention to bat and get a big total. We had hoped to put a bit more on the board than we [did] but we knew we could defend that out there.”

“Credit to PNG’s batters, when you’ve got wickets in hand you can afford to go a bit slower at the start. They did that really well and we definitely felt the pressure.”

“But we kept our composure really well and didn’t let them get too close to the mark.”

Player of the Match Kari Anderson, winning her 150^th Scotland cap, continued her excellent form.

“Kari Anderson was as reliable as ever,” said Aitken. “She has been a brilliant player for us and hopefully she’ll have a good game against Pakistan as well.”

Scotland play their final Group B match against Pakistan on Monday and after their encouraging performances against South Africa and Bangladesh earlier in the week they will hope to mark the end of the group phase with a notable scalp.

“I think it has to be a real team effort when it’s under these conditions,” said Aitken. “You need every player [to perform] and we [got that] today.”

“Against Pakistan we’ll go out there again, give it our all and see where it gets us.”

(Reproduced with the permission of Cricket Scotland)

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Jake Perry writes on Scottish cricket for Cricket Scotland and CricketEurope and is a regular contributor to HoldingWilley.

Twitter: @jperry_cricket / Facebook: Jake Perry Cricket