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The story was told in quiet. It was more about where it was coming from than whether it was there.
The captain of Scotland, Kathryn Bryce, had already removed both Amy Hunter and Gaby Lewis, two of the dangerous opening batsmen for Ireland, in the first five balls of the match. By the time the seventh over began, Bryce had claimed four of the five wickets that the favourites had lost for just 25 runs.
Ireland would never fully recover from that collapse, as first-round scorers Megan McColl and Bryce mowed down most of the target between them, with the latter bringing up victory with a four and creating history. Scotland Women needed just 111 to secure a first-ever place at a World Cup.
“There was probably a bit of silence almost and they can be quite vocal from the sidelines,” Bryce tells ESPNcricinfo’s Powerplay podcast in which she recalls the impact of taking those early Ireland wickets. “But we had a huge amount of support as well. When you get a couple of early wickets in a really important match like that, it can stun a team a little bit.
“The way that Megan started off the second innings was absolutely incredible, so when I went out there to bat, it was literally just trying to finish off the game and I was just saying, ‘don’t think about what’s coming, don’t think about it, just score the runs’. So when we got those winning runs at the end, it was just, I think the relief and just hard to switch off from that emotion of trying to ignore what was coming and realising what we’d actually achieved.”
Although Ireland was predicted to join Sri Lanka in securing the two qualifying spots for the tournament in Bangladesh in October, most observers viewed Scotland’s victory in the T20 Women’s World Cup Qualifier semi-final as an upset. However, Scotland had already defeated Ireland in their most recent T20I to draw a two-match series in Desert Springs, Spain, in October, and had also won the first of three ODIs between the teams just days earlier.
Scotland’s accomplishments are especially noteworthy in light of the fact that the sport was severely disrupted a year ago, is currently in financial trouble, and is still recovering from a July 2022 study that concluded Cricket Scotland was an institutionally racist organisation. Only in March of this year was a “high degree of prejudice towards female staff and players” discovered within the company by another research.
“A lot of people say it’s the access for people to be able to watch the game and see their teams out there playing,” Bryce says. “So I think for the girls in Scotland be able to watch a World Cup, which is the most televised event for the women’s game, and actually see a team from Scotland there and performing, and seeing people from where they’re from competing in that competition, is going to be really important.”