SCO vs NZ

So that will be all from the Grange Cricket Club in Edinburgh for today, but do join us again on Sunday to find out who does what in the solitary ODI between these sides! New Zealand will be hoping to win all their matches on this tour while the hosts will hope for better luck in the longer format, but one thing is for sure, it gets more difficult once the number of overs increase for an associate nation! Still, Scotland will be able to give their home crowd a lot of joy if they can manage an upset! For now, this is the pair of Pradeep and Bidipto, saying good bye, but keep following Sportskeeda for many more cricketing action from around the world! 

Mitchell Santner, New Zealand captain: We certainly did take it to another level, with the bat, right from ball one, we were positive, and that shone through right till the end. Different guys on this tour have stepped up at different times and that is the credit to the squad that we have. Mark Chapman is a quality player and it is no surprise that has done so well today. Now, it will be about moving into the longer format and making the experience count.

Richie Berrington, Scotland captain: It was disappointing today, full credit to New Zealand for the way they played but at this level, if we give a quality side lives, like we did once, we will be made to pay. There is not a lot of room for error on this good batting deck, so we need to get better at those things. We need to learn from these and gain experience to get better. On Sunday, we will get to play an ODI as well, and surely, that will be a good outing for us. We are looking forward to it. 

Mark Chapman has been adjudged the Player of the Match for his splendid innings to power his team to a massive total!

Mark Chapman: Found that there'll be a couple of changes, got the opportunity today and scored some runs. We pride ourselves on running hard and hitting gaps, big part of the blue print, it came off well today. The surface was good, throughout the innings the contributions along was impressive.

New Zealand - 254/5, beat Scotland - 152/9, by 102 runs and win the 2-match T20I series 2-0.

Chris Greaves 37 (29) | Richie Berrington 22 (12) || Jimmy Neesham - 2/9 | Michael Rippon - 2/37

Mark Chapman 83 (44) | Gavin Main - 2/44

Chasing in excess of 250 was always going to be a tough ask for Scotland and in the end, they were blown away by the visitors, by more than 100 runs! Too much quality in the New Zealand bowling attack, especially spin and Scotland were found wanting in negotiating spin to score runs. 

The start was a good one though, as opener George Munsey got three boundaries off the first over to get the chase off and running, and got a six off the first ball of the second over too, but since then, New Zealand came back into the match and how! Michael Bracewell, Mitchell Santner and Ish Sodhi were good as usual with their quality spin bowling. Newcomers Michael Rippon, Jacob Duffy and Ben Sears were slightly expensive, but bowled their quota of four overs and were among the wickets as well. Rippon is probably here to stay for New Zealand! 

Gavin Main had a decent outing for Scotland with both and ball but sadly, the rest of the performances from the home side were quite forgettable. What they have to improve on with the bat, is their ability to play spin, as they rely too heavily on the sweep and the reverse sweep. 

Fielding though, was a massive difference between the sides. Scotland dropped an important catch, and gave away far too many runs in the field by way of misfields, but New Zealand were tremendous in the field, whether while catching, or while inflicting run outs, or even while stopping runs! Scotland were totally outplayed in this department. 

So now, there will be one more opportunity for both these sides on this tour, to get a look at how they shape up, but in the ODI format, on Sunday. 

19.6 Ben Sears to Hamza Tahir, THAT'S IT! New Zealand win the game and win the series as well with a game to go, 2-0! Short into Tahir, cramps up for a pull shot, mistimes it into the on-side for a single. Doesn't get any more clinical than this for New Zealand as they win by a whopping 102 runs!

19.5 Ben Sears to Gavin Main, OH! Falls wide of the cover fielder, back of a length on the off-stump, Main skips down the track with a big swing and miscued it over the covers for one.

19.4 Ben Sears to Gavin Main, OH! Falls just short of Santner at mid-on, he dives full length forward but still couldn't get it. Length delivery on the stumps, Main thumped it down to mid-off.

Ben Sears [3.0-0-22-1] is back into the attack.

So Jacob Duffy finishes off and now, let's see if Ben Sears gets to finish off his spell or not! 

18.6 Jacob Duffy to Gavin Main, back of a length with pace on the off-stump, Main clears his front foot and taps it into the off-side for one.

18.5 Jacob Duffy to Gavin Main, another slower one, Main has a big swing across the line too early and doesn't make the connection yet again.