ICC Under-19 World Cup Qualifier Europe Region 2019

[The Professor]

Quite a competitive tournament here - in amongst some absolute bruisings.

After 6 matches Ireland and Scotland find themselves top of the tree with 2 wins out of 2. Denmark and the Netherlands have won one and drawn one and France and Jersey round things off with 2 losses.

The whipping boys at the moment are definitely France. They faced off against the Netherlands today and got murdered. After Netherlands batted first and put on 266/7 thanks to Vikramjit Singh's 133, France were all out for 60 in just 28.5 overs.

Tomorrow is a rest day but all 6 teams play on Monday with Netherlands v Ireland being the pick of the matches.

[The Professor]

Netherlands v Ireland did turn into something of a barnstormer.

Having won the toss, Ireland inserted themselves and were promptly 0-2. To have come back from that and got their eventual total of 213-8 was mighty impressive.

Netherlands were pegged back throughout their innings and could only reach 144. A number of Ireland's bowlers were very impressive but the cream of the crop was Alex Neary who got 3-17 and bagged the top three Netherlands batsmen.

Ireland remain in top spot alongside Scotland who beat France by 253 runs.

[The Professor]

It is now pretty much a fait accompli that Ireland will seal the sole European spot other than England in the ICC 2020 U19 Cricket World Cup in South Africa. Short of unbeaten Ireland being trounced by a France side that haven't won a game yet AND Scotland bagging a comprehensive victory against Denmark, the boys in green will be on the plane next year thanks to Ireland's victory in the Celtic derby today.

Away from that crunch fixture, Vikramjit Singh continued his impressive tournament for the Netherlands. His 85 runs against Denmark takes his total for the tournament to 276 - an average of 69. Very impressive from the 16 year old Punab born boy.