Bad light forces thriller to end as no-result

Bad light brought the first ODI between Scotland and Hong Kong at the Grange in Edinburgh to an excruciating end with Hong Kong needing 18 to win off 12 balls with six wickets in hand when the match was called off. Hong Kong had played 18 overs. If this were a T20, Duckworth-Lewis would have kicked in at this point to decide a winner. But this was an ODI, and both sides needed to have played a minimum of 20 overs for that to happen.

With rain delaying the start by five-and-a-half hours, the match had first been reduced to 21 overs a side. Another spell of rain 4.2 overs into the Scotland innings, after Hong Kong had sent the home side in, caused a further reduction to 20 overs a side. This was effectively a T20 game, but not quite.

Chasing 154, Hong Kong began briskly, thanks to a 26-ball 43 from Nizakat Khan. They slipped to 64 for 2 in the ninth over after Con de Lange, the left-arm spinner, dismissed both openers in quick succession. Babar Hayat and Anshuman Rath then put on 62 in 8.2 overs for the third wicket, leaving 28 needed off the last 22 balls. Both fell in the 17th over, bowled by Mark Watt, with the aggressive Rath run out. Ehsan Khan, on 2, and Tanwir Afzal, on 7, were at the crease when the umpires decided the light was insufficient for play to go on.

"It was the right decision to come off the field but the decision should have been made six overs prior as it was significantly dark then," Hong Kong coach Simon Cook said. "And that was further away from a result when neither team could claim to be unhappy.

"The umpires asked our batters if they could see the ball and our guys said it was tough and then Scotland were told they couldn't bowl fast bowlers. So towards the end they could just bowl slow to have a shot at getting in to contention and once we hit a boundary and a few singles they brought the fast bowler on. The umpires handled the game brilliantly other than that but they held on for a decision too long with the light."

Scotland's innings was given a firm foundation by Kyle Coetzer, who struck 53 off 30 balls, with six fours and two sixes, before he became the debutant Ehsan's second victim. The offspinner had earlier struck with his first ball in ODIs when he dismissed the opener Craig Wallace at the start of the fourth over.

Scotland, 96 for 1 after a 58-run second-wicket stand between Coetzer and Calum MacLeod, slumped to 102 for 5. De Lange's unbeaten run-a-ball 26 stilled the tumble of wickets, but the collapse took all the momentum out of the Scotland innings. Having scored 99 in the first ten overs of their innings, they only managed to add 54 in the last ten.

The two sides are scheduled to meet again for the second ODI in Edinburgh on Saturday.