That was an innings of three thirds. Ireland won the powerplay, even though their fielding wasn’t great. Scotland ruled the middle overs as the Bryce sisters built Scotland’s first fifty partnership in a T20 World Cup and then added another 56 for good measure. And Ireland fought back magnificently at the death, with Ava Canning producing the 19th over of her dreams. So we’ve had plenty of ebb-and-flow already. and an uneducated guess says that Ireland are now slight favourites, for two reasons. They’ve got the momentum, and the wind is now on their side, ready to mess with the bowlers’ rhythm and the fielders’ radar.
Scotland set Ireland 162 to win
20th over: Scotland 161-5 (McColl 1, Chatterji 6) It’s another good over for Ireland as Prendergast concedes only five, one of them a leg-bye. Priyanaz Chatterji manages a slog for two, but when she shapes for a switch hit off the last ball, she ends up playing tip and run. Prendergast finishes with 4-0-28-1, which, on merit, could easily have been 4-0-20-2.
19th over: Scotland 156-5 (McColl 1, Chatterji 1) That was the perfect penultimate over: two wickets, including the big one of Kathryn Bryce, and only two runs. Ava Canning finishes with 4-0-27-3 and she may have made all the difference.
Wicket! K Bryce c Murray b Canning 60 (Scotland 155-5)
And another! Canning goes wide of off and Bryce can only slice to extra-cover. A tame end to a terrific innings.
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Wicket! Lister b Canning 6 (Scotland 154-4)
Ava Canning deceives Lister with a slower ball outside off, then dismisses her with a slower ball on the pads.
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18th over: Scotland 153-3 (K Bryce 60, Lister 5) Lewis, needing to turn one wicket into two again, turns to the pace of Prendergast. And it nearly works as Ailsa Lister mistimes a pull. Alice Tector, running in from the deep, gets there but can’t hold on.
17th over: Scotland 147-3 (K Bryce 57, Lister 2) Well bowled Arlene Kelly, who got that big wicket and was also more frugal than anyone else today. She finishes with 4-0-24-1. But what a great partnership from the Bryce sisters: 106 off 10.5 overs.
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Wicket! S Bryce c Hunter b Kelly 49 (Scotland 142-3)
Kelly finds the edge and makes the breakthrough! Hunter, standing up, takes an effortless catch and Sarah Bryce has to go. She made an excellent 49 off 35 balls, with four fours and a six.
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16th over: Scotland 142-2 (K Bryce 54, S Bryce 49) Dalzell continues and so does the flow of runs. Kathryn reaches fifty with a thick edge for four and that brings up the hundred partnership too. The sisters meet in the middle of the pitch for a hug.
15th over: Scotland 133-2 (K Bryce 49, S Bryce 45) Lewis reverts to spin, giving Aimee Maguire a fourth over. Yet again things start quite well for Ireland and then go pear-shaped. Kathryn Bryce sends Maguire’s final ball sailing over midwicket for six! That’s 11 off the over but Maguire finishes with 4-0-36-1, not bad in the circumstances – the wind, the cold, the Bryces.
14th over: Scotland 122-2 (K Bryce 40, S Bryce 43) Seam at both ends as Alana Dalzell comes on. Like Kelly, she keeps it tight at first, but ends up conceding a four as Kathryn Bryce his a pull straight back past her. It wasn’t far from Dalzell’s fingers but it was hit so hard that we can’t put it down as a chance. At drinks, Scotland are on top: the partnership is 86 off only 51 balls.
13th over: Scotland 113-2 (K Bryce 34, S Bryce 41) Seeing her spinners suffer, Gaby Lewis goes back to seam. Arlene Kelly restores order, conceding only two off her first five balls, but then Sarah Bryce cuts for four. She’s been superb at finding the gaps.
12th over: Scotland 107-2 (K Bryce 33, S Bryce 38) The Bryces have seen Prendergast off for now. As she is replaced by Aimee Maguire, the runs keep coming. Each sister receives a full toss and both of them cash in, Sarah on the off side, Kathryn on the leg. Kathryn gets a half-volley too and drives it for four. That’s 16 off the over and 36 off the last two.
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11th over: Scotland 91-2 (K Bryce 25, S Bryce 29) Lewis keeps Murray on and soon regrets it as Sarah Bryce finds top gear. A drive for four, a lap for two, a chip for two more, a wide, a dancing drive for four, and best of all a swing for six!
That’s 20 off the over. The sisters have already added 55, the first 50 partnership for Scotland in the T20 World Cup. This is a chasing ground, and it now looks as if Ireland are going to have to chase a big total.
10th over: Scotland 71-2 (K Bryce 25, S Bryce 10) Orla Prendergast continues. She runs in with intent but the Bryces are equal to it. When Prendergast tries another bouncer, Kathryn hits a tennis shot that goes just over the sweeper. Fortune favours the brave. At the halfway stage, Scotland are well placed.
9th over: Scotland 63-2 (K Bryce 20, S Bryce 7) Lewis turns to Cara Murray’s leg-spin. The Bryces, using their feet well, milk it for ones and twos.
8th over: Scotland 56-2 (K Bryce 16, S Bryce 4) Knowing that this is the partnership she has to break, Lewis turns to her star all-rounder, Orla Prendergast. The keeper stands back for the first time. She takes a few balls to settle, giving Sarah Bryce an easy push for two, bowling two wides and allowing Kathryn to clip for two more. But when she bowls a third wide, it’s a good one – a snorting bumper that whistles past Kathryn’s nose. And she almost bags Sarah as a sliced cut drops short of the woman at backward point.
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7th over: Scotland 47-2 (K Bryce 13, S Bryce 1) Gaby Lewis keeps Canning on for a third over. The Bryces take a single apiece and then Kathryn goes on the attack again with a lofted cut for four, a force for two and a pull for two more. She has raced to 13 off only nine balls.
6th over: Scotland 37-2 (K Bryce 4, S Bryce 0) So the powerplay ends with Ireland on top. But the Bryce sisters are inn early and they are the big guns. Sraah starts more watchfully than her sister as Maguire’s over yields only two runs.
Wicket! Carter b Maguire 14 (Scotland 36-2)
One brings two! Gaby Lewis goes back to Aimee Maguire’s spin and her arm ball proves too much for Carter. With both openers back in the hutch, the fielders can feel good as they take drinks. Hot ones, I presume.
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5th over: Scotland 35-1 (Carter 14, K Bryce 3) In comes Kathryn Bryce and she starts with a ramp for two. Very cool.
WIcket! Fraser c Tector b Canning 15 (Scotland 30-1)
It’s been coming. Fraser goes for another big hit and gets a top edge. The ball sails into the grey sky and somewhere in the deep, Alice Tector does very well to hold onto it. I say somewhere because the cameras lost track of the ball. That’s how windy it is.
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4th over: Scotland 28-0 (Carter 12, Fraser 13) As Kelly continues, it’s Fraser’s turn to live dangerously. She clunks the first ball close to mid-on but collects two and celebrates with a four, chipped over mid-off. The Irish women think they’ve got her stumped, but she gets her foot down just in the nick of time.
3rd over: Scotland 21-0 (Carter 12, Fraser 6) Now it’s medium pace from both ends as Ava Canning replaces Maguire. Carter keeps swinging, chopping over the covers, pulling over midwicket, keeping every fielder interested but picking up two twos. With a pair of singles and a wide, the scoreboard is ticking over nicely.
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2nd over: Scotland 13-0 (Carter 7, Fraser 4) It’s seam from the other end, from Arlene Kelly, though Hunter stays up to the stumps. Fraser picks up two with a tuck and a single with a pull. Kelly keeps Carter quiet and beats the bat outside off, but then Carter slogs to leg and again comes close to being caught in the deep.
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1st over: Scotland 7-0 (Carter 5, Fraser 1) It’s Aimee Maguire, slow left-arm with a bustling run-up. She starts with a small stroke of luck as Darcey Carter misses a clip to leg. Then Carter clumps a single down the ground. Katherine Fraser, greeted by a short mid-on, reacts by trying to play square and misses with a sweep. She changes tack, dances down the pitch, drives for a single – that’s better. Carter follows suit, goes big and flirts with danger but just gets her on-drive over the woman at deep mid-on. Scotland are away!
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The Irish keeper , Amy Hunter, has her helmet on. So Gaby Lewis is handing the new ball to a spinner.
The anthems: a win for Scotland
Out come the players, each holding the hand of a mascot. Tweenagers rather than tinies, the mascots oook a bit sheepish. The spectators, in their hoodies and kagoules, are invited to stand if they are able. The Irish anthem comes first and it’s fine, but Scotland have the edge with a re-recorded version of Flower Of Scotland. It’s sung by a girls’ choir from George Watson’s College, the sporting powerhouse that produced Kathryn Bryce, her sister Sarah, and the 18-year-old seamer Gabriella Fontenla. And it’s piercingly good: there may be goosebumps in the crowd, and not just because of the cold.
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About last night
This World Cup started with a bang, not a whimper, thanks to Danni Wyatt-Hodge. Last month she gave birth to a daughter, Daisy; last night she blew Sri Lanka away.
The teams
Scotland 1 Darcey Carter, 2 Katherine Fraser, 3 Kathryn Bryce (capt), 4 Sarah Bryce, 5 Megan McColl, 6 Priyanaz Chatterji, 7 Ailsa Lister (wkt), 8 Rachel Slater, 9 Chloe Abel, 10 Kirstie Gordon, 11 Gabriella Fontenla.
Ireland 1 Amy Hunter (wkt), 2 Alana Dalzell, 3 Gaby Lewis (capt), 4 Orla Prendergast, 5 Rebecca Stokell, 6 Leah Paul, 7 Alice Tector, 8 Arlene Kelly, 9 Ava Canning, 10 Cara Murray, 11 Aimee Maguire.
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It's not raining!
… but it is cold. And so windy that, at the toss, everybody’s trousers were billowing like billy-ho. So both sides should be very much at home.
Toss: Ireland put Scotland in
Gaby Lewis of Ireland wins the toss. “We’re going to have a bowl,” she says. “It’s obviously overcast and the wicket’s been under cover.” Kathryn Bryce is honest enoiugh to say that she would have bowled first too.
Preamble
Morning everyone and welcome to a rather different World Cup. One in which expanding the tournament means going from ten nations to 12. One in which we never hear a word from a tinpot dictator. One in which every match official makes it through the airport.
Today begins with a small piece of cricket history: the first meeting between Scotland and Ireland in a women’s World Cup. As Raf Nicholson, our resident expert, said in her tournament preview, it should be a cracker.
By mid-afternoon, we’ll almost certainly have another piece of history: the first win for either of these sides in a T20 World Cup. Ireland have made it to the finals four times before, playing 17 games and losing the lot. Scotland appeared for the first time in 2024, playing four games and also losing the lot. In sport, as Emma John observed in a wise column about the Ben Stokes shemozzle, everyone’s a loser.
Gaby Lewis, Ireland’s captain, says there’s a “massive rivalry” between the two nations. History is on Ireland’s side: in 15 T20 meetings with Scotland, all in the past eight years, they have won nine and lost six. But form is with Kathryn Bryce and Scotland, who won the last three of those games, including the latest, a World Cup qualifier in Nepal.
Both may be eyeng more than just a first victory. They’re in the gentler of the two groups with only one big gun – their mutual foes, England. Second place is expected to go to New Zealand (who are 4th in the world rankings), Sri Lanka (6th) or West Indies (7th), but Ireland (9th) and Scotland (11th) are entitled to dream of an upset. And both of them, when they face that lot, should have the edge in one crucial aspect of the game: reading the weather.
The Manchester climate may have something to say today with showers forecast around the start, though they’re unlikely to prevent a result. All being well, I’ll be back soon with news of the toss and the teams.
