Chris Greaves, the Amazon delivery lad who rocked Bangladesh

Al Amerat (Oman), October 18

Chris Greaves, who put up a stunning performance for Scotland against Bangladesh in an upset win in the T20 World Cup on Sunday, is not a superstar back home, though his face would be very familiar to many people — for he has been delivering parcels for Amazon.

The 31-year-old Greaves smashed 45 off 28 balls to lift Scotland from a precarious 53/6 to 140/9 in a Round 1 match. He then took the two key wickets of Shakib Al Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim with his leg-spin as world No. 6 Bangladesh managed just 134/9.

“It was an incredible day for him but certainly it wasn’t a surprise for us. We knew he had the ability to do this,” said Kyle Coetzer, the Scotland captain. “Really proud of Greaves, he had to sacrifice a lot. He was delivering parcels for Amazon not long ago and now he’s getting man of the match and playing against Bangladesh.”

Greaves, paying just his second international match, added 51 runs for the seventh wicket with Mark Watt, who hit 22, to take the attack to Bangladesh.

Fast bowler Brad Wheal returned figures of 3/24 as Scotland scraped through to a famous win.

Coetzer urged ICC to give more opportunities to the Associate Nations to show their skills at the highest level. “The exposure is really, really important for us and any Associate team. Sides like Scotland, Nepal or Malaysia when they perform and have a good game and win games of cricket it drives the cricket within their country,” said Coetzer. “The youngsters’ aspire to try and play the game and when those opportunities are dried up, so to speak, it’s very hard to then encourage the cricket in the country. So you want to see strong performances, you want to see your country on the TV.” — Agencies