Cricket Scotland cancels Regional T20 competition owing to COVID-19 pandemic

Cricket Scotland, on Friday (September 18), announced its decision to cancel all the men's and women's regional domestic competitions with immediate effect as a result of the increased restrictions imposed by the Scottish government owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.



As per Cricket Scotland’s revised fixtures a two-team Regional T20 competition consisting of four matches started on September 13 with two matches between the sides: Eagles, representing the east of Scotland, and Stormers, representing the rest of Scotland. The next two matches that were to be played on Sunday (September 20) at Hamilton Crescent now stand cancelled.



“This has been a difficult decision but the safety of our players and officials is paramount and it is important that cricket is playing its part in helping to contain the spread of the virus,” Gus Mackay, chief executive of Cricket Scotland, said in a statement. “Cricket activity has made good progress in the last 6 weeks but we feel that the long-distance movement of cricketers is not wise, given the Scottish Government announcement today.”



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Stormers defeated Eagles convincingly in the first two matches that were played at Strathmore CC. They won the first match by eight wickets after restricting Eagles to 88 for 8 from their 20 overs with Abtah Maqsood taking three wickets. Scotland internationals Lorna Jack (33*) and Priyanaz Chatterji (27) starred with the bat.



In the second match, Stormers managed to skittle Eagles out for a mere 47 after setting them a target of 98 runs. Megan McColl scored an unbeaten 40 for the Stormers and Nayma Sheikh took 4 for 9 runs as Eagles went down by 50 runs.



“All localised club fixtures can continue to be played under the current guidance that is in place,” the statement further said.