England beat Scotland by seven wickets to get their Under-19 Cricket World Cup campaign off to the perfect start.
It was a convincing victory for England as captain Ben McKinney led the charge with 88 runs from 66 deliveries as they easily chased down Scotland’s target of 174.
England next take on tournament hosts South Africa on Tuesday – live on Sky Sports Cricket and Sky Sports Mix – with both teams having won their opening group games.
“It was tough batting early on, but I found my range pretty well. Today we gave ourselves a bit more time as openers and it paid off,” said McKinney, who was player of the match.
“The pitch had a little bit of hold for the spin and it stopped a bit off a length for the seamers, but overall I thought it was a good wicket.
“I think Jaydn and I complement each other, with him being a smaller left hander it helps with the inconsistency of length. I would have taken this start every day of the week for our first game of the world cup and now I hope it can continue.
“I thought 174 wasn’t an easy total to chase if we didn’t go about it the right way. I thought it was a decent enough total if it was going to spin a bit more. Young Farhan Ahmed is so ruthless with his lengths and lines and we took seven wickets with spin today, so we wanted to get spin on as early as possible, but the seamers started really well for us.
“It was great for some of our other batters to get some time in the middle, they probably would have wanted some more, but for them to come and finish the job and see what it feels like in a world cup game is a great to see.”
Three wickets each from Farhan Ahmed, younger brother of Rehan Ahmed, and Luc Benkenstein set things up nicely for England as Scotland struggled to build partnerships.
Despite the efforts of opener Jamie Dunk and captain Owen Gould, who scored 40 and 48 runs respectively, Scotland knew they had an uphill battle ahead when they failed to go beyond the 200 mark.
An opening partnership of 109 between Jadyn Denly and McKinney set England on their way to a comfortable chase, with Noah Thain contributing to 22 runs which took the batting side past 150.
McKinney could not reach a century but Benkenstein and Hamza Sheikh saw England across the line in the 27th over with just three wickets gone.
“Disappointing way to start the tournament but a lot of positives to take as well. I don’t think we bowled particularly badly, they batted very well and it was very impressive from Ben,” said Scotland’s Gould.
“Lots of things we can work on in training before the West Indies, so not all that bad but the way we wanted to start.”
Watch selected matches from the ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup live on Sky Sports. England’s second game against South Africa is live from 7.45am on Tuesday on Sky Sports Cricket and Sky Sports Mix (8am first ball).
