Scotland beaten by Netherlands in tri-series opener – BBC Sport

T20 tri-series, The Hague

Netherlands 167-8 (20 overs): Levitt 43 (31), Singh 39 (18); Main 2-26

Scotland 126 (18.1 overs): Cross 49 (32), Berrington 39 (29); Kingma 4-21

Netherlands won by 41 runs

Scotland were well beaten by the Netherlands in The Hague as their World Cup preparations got off to a disappointing start.

Having lost the toss and been put into bat, the Netherlands began brightly and Michael Levitt (43) and Max O’Dowd (30) put on 68 for the first wicket.

A quickfire 39 from Vikramjit Singh continued the positive momentum for the hosts on their way to posting a total of 167-8.

Gavin Main, who has not been selected in Scotland’s squad for June’s T20 World Cup in the West Indies and USA, was the pick of the bowlers with 2-26.

In reply, openers Michael Jones and Oli Hairs could only manage five runs between them, and from there Scotland were always behind the rate.

A fourth-wicket partnership of 66 between Matthew Cross and captain Richie Berrington kept Scotland in the contest, but no other batter made it into double figures as they fell 41 runs short.

The Scots face the Dutch again on 22 May, either side of two games against Ireland, who complete the three-team competition.

These games count towards qualification for the 2026 T20 World Cup, as well as helping Scotland prepare for this summer’s competition, where they will play England (4 June), Namibia (6 June), Oman (9 June) and Australia (15 June) in Group B.