Scotland are well and truly in front of Canada in the Intercontinental Cup match at King City after a day on which 19 wickets fell and the visitors claimed a 295 run first innings lead. Canada staged a little fight back in the morning, but were destroyed in their first innings by poor shot selection and forced to follow on.

Centurion Dougie Lockhart resumed on 126 and Neil McCallum on 30, and the plan was to bat on through as much of the day as possible, setting Canada an unattainable target. But the Canada bowlers weren’t ready to give up that easily. After being beaten up through most of yesterday, they started quickly today and limited the Scottish total to one that they would have a fighting chance to reach.

McCallum was the first to fall when he left a Sunil Dhaniram delivery outside off stump, then saw it break sharply and peg back the top of off stump. Omar Hussain was the next to go, tempted into a big waft outside off stump which led to a nick into the gloves of Rustam Bhatti. Majid Haq managed to partner with Lockhart, as they added 48 runs for the sixth wicket before Haq left a Faridi delivery that took his middle stump.

Though the rest of the lower order provided minimal support, Dougie Lockhart finished up on a wonderful 152 that led Scotland to their final total. He spent a grand total of 513 minutes at the wicket, faced 361 balls, and stroked 14 boundaries during his innings. His weak dismissal belied his play through the innings, as he scooped a Sunil Dhaniram delivery back at the bowler with the score on 361. After some efficient work, the tail was cleaned up and Scotland were all out for 374. While it is still a great total – the highest one ever on this ground – it is quite a bit lower than Scotland would have expected given their overnight total of 286 for 3.

Canada’s bowlers did much better on the second day, limiting scoring and taking wickets through the morning session. Sunil Dhaniram, who had been rested for much of yesterday, led the way for the home side taking 4 wickets for 61 runs in 23 overs of work. Qaiser Ali also turned it up on day 2, returning figures of 22.5-6-55-2, while Sami Faridi took 2 wickets but at an expensive 94 runs. The final wickets fell shortly after lunch, so Canada had almost a full session in which to make a start to what would need to be a patient reply.

During this tour, we have seen two very different Canadian batting teams. We’ve seen the patient efforts accumulating runs and building an innings, and we’ve seen overaggressive play with dangerous shots and wickets given away. Today’s effort was the latter. Wickets fell early and often as Canada played undisciplined shots and got themselves out, with Scotland’s bowlers more than willing to put the ball in the right spot to get wickets.

The destruction started on the first ball of the innings, when Abdul Jabbar played across the line of an inswinging delivery from Dewald Nel and was trapped leg before wicket. The second victim was Sandeep Jyoti who was caught after skying a Gordon Goudie delivery to Qasim Sheikh. Canada were 3 down for 12 runs when Rustam Bhatti edged into the slips, and the rout was on.

Arvind Kandappah was caught in the slips, Abdool Samad was bowled by Nel, and Qaiser Ali had his stumps taken by a Ross Lyons delivery, with the best scorer among them making 10. The bottom order showed the resistance of a piece of crepe paper in the Atlantic, and Canada were all out for a truly dismal 79, lasting only 38.2 overs at the crease. The Canadians avoided monumental embarrassment, as they managed to beat the all-time Intercontinental Cup record low score of 76, set by the United Arab Emirates in 2005. Little consolation for the Canadians.

Dewald Nel bowled well in his opening spell, and in his return, taking 4 wickets from 32 runs in 10 overs – good ODI numbers, and even better in an Intercontinental Cup match. Ross Lyons also had brilliant numbers, bowling 9 overs – 5 of them maidens – and taking 3 wickets while only conceding 6 runs. Gordon Goudie started well, taking 1 for 7, but had his spell cut short after 4.2 overs due to a back injury.

With the utter failure of the Canadian lineup, Scotland invited them to bat again, with 18 overs left in the day. It started out much like the first innings, with Abdul Jabbar gone for a duck. This time he lasted three balls before he followed a ball out wide and edged it to the wicketkeeper Lockhart. He has the unenviable status of having been dismissed twice in the same day without making a run. Not a great effort for a so-called specialist batsman.

Sandeep Jyoti and 17-year-old Rustam Bhatti made a strong start and, for the first time, were starting to put the Scottish bowlers under pressure with some confident boundaries. They added 30 runs before Bhatti played around a Gordon Drummond delivery and got clean bowled. Qaiser Ali joined Jyoti, and they saw out the remaining overs until the end of the day. At stumps, Canada had reached 36 runs for the loss of 2 wickets.

Dewald Nel and Gordon Drummond grabbed a wicket each in the second Canadian innings, at the cost of 20 and 10 runs respectively, and will look forward to more tomorrow.

So the match is, barring a miracle, Scotland’s. Canada were almost historically bad, and remain 259 runs behind in their second innings effort and with Scotland looking to close things out early and earn a rest day in Toronto.