Monday was a scorcher in Dublin, and I planned to soak up the rays in Rathmines as I watched Norway take on Scotland. I must first amend my report of yesterday's Twenty20 Final: Lewie gave Rick Francis MotM, but it was so long into his speech that my notepad had filled up!

Most of the drama at Rathmines was before the match. Norway lost one of their players to a head injury in their warm-up, and then umpire Trevor Magee was felled by a stray throw by Gordon Drummond during the Scottish warm-up. I am informed that Drummond has previous.

Richard Smith took over from Magee, and Sameer Sachdev was promoted to open the batting with Zaheer Ashiq after Norway had won the toss. The two coped well with the pacey John Blain and the whippy Sean Weeraratna.

But on 11 Blain produced one that lifted and left Sameer, and Neil McCallum took a good catch at third slip. The rest of the Norway team could not cope with the Scottish bowlers, and when Zaheer was out for 11, it was a matter of time.

Zaheer tried to leave one from Weeraratna, but nicked it through to Smith. He forlornly gestured that he hadn't hit it, but somebody had, and he was the only guy with a bat in his hand! Blain was given a rest after 6 overs and 2/9, replaced by Matt Parker.

Weeraratna bowled his ten, yielding a Birmingham Six-for 24, and Parker took the final wicket in the 21st over to finish with 2/9. Norway were all out for 43, 12 of which were extras. Colin Smith took three more catches, all of them off the bat.

Scotland tried to finish the job as quickly as possible, but after Ryan Watson had stroked a big six from a free hit, he holed out for 18, and first change Zaheer Ashiq bowled three good overs to slow the Scots up a little.

Richard Berrington scored 14* and Qasim Sheikh 5* as 44 was reached in the ninth over. Yet again the Wee Jimmies ran an irrelevant third when they needed two to win. We sampled the chicken curry (thanks, Collette), and I then went down to Anglesea Road.

I was stopped by the Gardai as I entered Dublin 4 via Eglinton Road, but they weren't looking for entry visas, just road tax. Luckily, I had paid last week - €636 including arrears, almost as much as a visa to Dublin 4!

When I got to Merrion, Denmark were just beginning their pursuit of 212, Italy's total built around Peter Petricola's 62*. There were two Danish Guildford Four-fors: Morten Hedegaard with 4/30 and Bashir Shah with 4/48.

The Italian seam attack worked its way through the Danish top order, all of whom got starts, but only one of whom, Carsten Pedersen, topped twenty. When Morten Hedegaard was sixth out with the score on 104, the Azzuri were in the billion lire seats.

Then Bobby Chawla (23) featured in a 58 run stand with Lars Hedegaard, but the Danes still needed 72 off the last ten overs. Thomas Hansen helped Lars Hedegaard take the score on to 180, but with six overs to go the latter was stupidly run out for a fine 47.

Three runs later Henrik Hansen was given run out to a few raised eyebrows (it's about all I can raise these days!), and Bashir Shah was thrust into the breech. He looked anything but a no. 11 as he took his singles, stroked a couple of fours, and pucked one onto the pavilion roof.

Nine were needed off the last over. The first ball went for four, and there followed three singles. The Italians convened an extraordinary meeting of the G8 Summit, and asked Silvio's advice on the satellite phone. But they hadn't enough kroner in cash to buy off the Danes.

Hansen swished, got an inside edge, and the ball streaked to the fine leg boundary. Denmark 215/9 off 49.5 for a dramatic win. The Italian bowlers stuck to their task: Din Alaud 1/40; Pennazza 1/42; Petricola 2/35; Munasinghe 2/35; Jayasena 1/55.

But in their final spells Din Alaud, Pennazza and Jayasena just weren't tight enough. And Thomas Hansen and Bashir Shah were brave enough to take them on rather than waiting for something to happen.