Cricket
Peter Della Penna, Cricket 4y

Scrappy starters, fighting finishers

Cricket

Our Associate batting nominees savaged bowlers and turned matches around dramatically. Click here for our Associate bowling shortlist

George Munsey
127 not out v Netherlands
Ireland T20 tri-series, Dublin
Scotland's record total in T20Is, 252, was underpinned by a record individual total from Munsey at the top of the order. He brought up his first fifty in 27 balls in the tenth over, and took 14 balls to score his second. The most savage treatment was dealt out to Max O'Dowd's part-time offspin in the 13th, when Munsey struck two fours and four sixes. His 14 sixes were also the most by an Associate player in a T20I innings.

George Munsey
96 v Oman
third List A match, Al Amerat
After Scotland blew away Oman for 24 in the first match of the series, the hosts rebounded in the second match for a convincing win to set up a thrilling decider in which they were largely on top before Munsey's momentum-shifting knock. When he entered at 153 for 3 with 13 overs left, nobody had scored at better than a run a ball in the innings. Munsey, though, torched Oman's attack, striking seven fours and nine sixes in his 43-ball knock before ending a boundary short of a maiden List A ton.

Norman Vanua
54 v Kenya
T20 World Cup Qualifier, Dubai
Four years earlier, Papua New Guinea needed a win in their final group-stage match at the qualifier in Ireland to secure automatic qualification to the T20 World Cup in India but were tripped up by USA. It looked like déjà vu when the Group A leaders were 19 for 6 against Kenya after four overs, but Vanua held his nerve after entering at No. 8, stretching the innings out before teeing off late. It was enough in the end, as PNG secured their first trip to a major ICC men's event.

JP Kotze
148 v Hong Kong
World Cricket League Division Two, Windhoek
A win for Namibia on the final day of group play would clinch ODI status and a guaranteed 36 ODIs as part of the new Cricket World Cup League Two structure. The tournament hosts were scoring at just barely three an over when Kotze entered in the 15th. He came into the day in woeful form, but everything clicked in a brutal knock in which he struck 15 fours and nine sixes off 86 balls to put Namibia on the path to the tournament title.

Jatinder Singh
67 not out v Hong Kong
T20 World Cup Qualifier, Dubai
After being one of the form teams of the tournament entering the playoffs, Oman had bungled a seemingly simple chase against Namibia a night earlier. It looked like a second straight trip to the T20 World Cup was about to slip away in their second-chance playoff match against Hong Kong after a pair of run-outs in a kamikaze innings in which they slipped to 84 for 7. But Singh refused to wilt under the pressure, eventually playing a series of bold switch-hits late in the innings to boost Oman to a battling total of 134, which they managed to defend.

Click here for the Associate bowling shortlist and here for ESPNcricinfo Awards 2019 home

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