Freddie Coleman held his nerve as Scotland overcame a dose of the jitters to rekindle their World Cup qualifying hopes.
The Warwickshire batsman stroked a confident, unbeaten 64 to help his side post 249 for seven against Nepal in Queenstown, New Zealand.
Nepal’s chances were dealt a blow before the match began when captain Paras Khadka was ruled out due to injury but a flurry of mid-innings wickets had put the Scots in trouble until Coleman dug in to help them recover from a precarious 190 for seven.
Falkland’s Safy Sharif also played his part with a 17-ball 25 not out as Scotland added 60 runs in the final five overs before going on to complete a 90-run win.
Captain Kyle Coetzer refused to get carried away with the first win of Scotland’s qualifying campaign following their poor opening defeat by Hong Kong.
He said: “It was a good, solid performance and we were much closer to where we want to be but we know we can improve.”
Calum MacLeod had given his team an ideal start, hitting six boundaries in his run-a-ball 46, only for the middle order to get bogged down in tricky batting conditions. But Coleman’s impressive innings, featuring four boundaries and the only maximum of the innings, gave Scotland a defendable total. Yorkshire’s Iain Wardlaw claimed three wickets for the second match in a row, while Rob Taylor and Majid Haq had two apiece, the latter conceding only 24 runs from his 10 overs.
Guyanendra Mulla top-scored for Nepal with 34 but Scotland were comfortable winners in the end.
Man of the match Coleman said: “It was vital after the Hong Kong result that we came out and got ourselves rolling and got a good win under our belts.
“We did that, so now we are up and running.
“It was nice for me to get some runs and play my part.
“We got off to a good start but it was quite tricky during the middle overs with the spinners.
“The pitch has been played on a bit, so it is a bit slow which made it difficult to hit the ball into the gaps. But I was able to kind of hold my patience a little bit and score a few at the end.”
Scotland will be firmly on course to reach the Super Six stage if they can beat Group A leaders UAE on Sunday.