Sport: Mahuru Dai stars as PNG beat Scotland

2:49 pm on 9 October 2017

Mahuru Dai starred with bat and ball as Papua New Guinea beat Scotland by five wickets in the second ODI in Port Moresby to climb back to second in the World Cricket League Championship.

After electing to bat first, the visitors were bowled out for 203 in the final over, with Dai claiming a miserly 2 for 19 off his ten overs, while Norman Vanua and John Boge Reva chipped in with two wickets apiece.

Captain Assad Vala anchored the PNG run chase with a patient 49 of 73 balls before Mahuru Dai came in and paced the home side to victory, reaching 63 not out off 54 balls, to guide the Barramundis to victory with two overs to spare.

"At 80 runs (to go) I was in control," he said.

"We were calling this and we were collecting (runs) and when we reached 30 (runs to go) then at that point I was more like a set batsmen.

"So I told my partner if we wanted to score in boundaries I would go for it".

Papua New Guinea celebrate beating Scotland in the second ODI in Port Moresby.

Papua New Guinea celebrate beating Scotland in the second ODI in Port Moresby. Photo: Cricket PNG

Scotland had won the opening ODI between the two nations by 101 runs on Friday but the yesterday's result enabled PNG to leapfrog the tourists back to second place, two points behind the Netherlands, with two rounds still remaining in the World Cricket League Championship.

After drawing their four-day Intercontinental Cup clash and splitting the ODI series 1-1, Mahuru Dai said Scotland and the Barramundis were evenly matched but

believed PNG had plenty of room to get better.

"We came back into second position in the World Cricket League so yeah we won and ww have 16 points and they have 15 - (it was) even in the tournament but we are ahead of them so that's good," he said.

"Batting is the main thing to improve, especially our top five order batsmen, we have to improve on that. I think we are ok but not really ok, we have to do more".

Papua New Guinea are back in action at the end of November against Scotland and Hong Kong.