Scotland and Ireland play out a Tie in the T20I Tri-Series without a Super Over

The ongoing Triangular series involving Ireland, Netherlands and Scotland has already witnessed some intriguing games and the 4th match played on Sunday ending in a Tie. The game played in Deventer between Ireland and Scotland saw both the teams finishing on 185. Scotland’s Safyaan Sharif was given responsibilities of defending seven runs in final and over and the pacer dismissed the dangerous Kevin O’Brien on the very first ball.

The next two balls yielded three runs after which Stuart Poynter got beaten on the next two balls before he sneaked a bye on the penultimate delivery. With three needed off the final ball, the on-strike batsman Stuart Thompson could only hit the Yorker length towards long-on to run two. Thus, the game became only the 10th in the history of T20I cricket to end in a Tie and the first since the 2015 Sharjah T20I between Pakistan and England.

This T20I is also the first Tie in Europe continent and also the first without a bowl out/Super Over. The first three Tied T20I games had a bowl out while the six tied T20 Internationals after that had Super Over. The Irish and Scotland sides took one point apiece, though the ICC rules suggest that all Tied matches in the T20I format to hold Super Over.

Here are some of the stats and numbers that were recorded during the thriller:

1 – Scotland’s top three George Munsey, Kyle Coetzer and Calum MacLeod scored 46, 54 and 46 respectively. This is the first time in a T20I innings that top three scored in excess of 45. This is overall the 5th instance of top three scoring 40+ in a T20I inning.

7 – The seven runs Ireland failed to chase down in the 20th over against Safyaan are the joint 2nd fewest in a T20I. Bilal Khan took successfully defended six runs for his team Oman while John Mooney, Dale Steyn and Merchant de Lange took their teams to win while defending seven runs in this format.

Tim Southee gave away six runs while Windies needed seven runs in the last over of the 2008 Auckland T20I to end the game in a Tie.

81 – Paul Stirling’s 41-ball 81 during the chase included five fours and six sixes. This is the highest individual score by an Ireland player in the T20I format. The previous highest individual T20I score for Ireland was 79 also by Stirling against Afghanistan in 2012.

185/4 – Scotland’s total of 185/4 in this game is their 2nd highest in the T20I format behind 189/3 which came in 2017 against Hong Kong.

1019 – Gary Wilson completed 1000 runs in the T20I format when he got off the mark in the game. He became the 3rd player to score 1000 T20I runs for Ireland after Paul Stirling (1151) and William Porterfield (1024). Stirling also completed 1000 T20I runs in this Triangular T20I tournament only.