Scotland have qualified for next year's Under-19 Cricket World Cup in Zimbabwe and Namibia after beating the Netherlands today in a winner takes all final group match.

Both sides headed into their final game having beaten each of the other four participating teams - Denmark, Guernsey, Jersey and Sweden - with Dutch captain Cedric de Lange winning the toss at Forthill in Dundee and choosing to bowl first.

Max Chaplin and Olly Pillinger got the Scottish innings off to a good start with a 93 run opening partnership, with Pillinger the first man out for 52 at the 20 over mark of their innings. Chaplin was out six overs later for 42.

Ollie Pillinger celebrates his fifty (Cricket Scotland)

Rory Grant (39) and Ethan Ramsey (46) also played a key role in Scotland's total of 237-8, whilst Dutch captain De Lange was the pick of the bowlers with 4-29.

The visitors lost three wickets within the first six overs of their reply before Teun Kloppenburg and Tom de Leede - familiar surnames to longtime observers of Dutch cricket - added 73 for the fourth wicket.

Kloppenburg was dismissed for 38 to end that partnership with de Leede reaching 67 - including a 54 run partnership with Steele Grooteman - before he was out. Aadit Jain hit an unbeaten 28 from 22 balls to keep up with the requiired rate but none of the bottom three could stay with him as the Dutch were bowled out for 217, losing by 20 runs.

For Scotland it will be a fourth consecutive appearance in the Under-19 World Cup, whilst the Netherlands have not qualified since 2000.

The automatic qualifiers for the main event were the top 10 full members from 2024 plus Zimbabwe as hosts, with Afghanistan the full member that dropped back to regional qualifying. They duly won the Asian qualifier, whilst Tanzania won the African qualifier - Namibia missing out on their own tournament - and Japan winning the EAP qualifier.

The Americas qualifier gets underway in the state of Georgia on Saturday with hosts USA battling it out with Argentina, Bermuda and Canada.