SCOTLAND'S World Cup campaign ended winless and wet on a day that you would sooner associate with Stirling in spring than Australia in autumn.
Nevertheless, two sizeable rain delays in Hobart were all that worried Australia as they chased the 131 runs they needed to ensure Scotland head home pointless. This defeat was Scotland's campaign in microcosm; much to be proud of, plenty more to learn; glimmers of promise undone by glaring errors; outclassed but not embarrassed.
Assessing Scotland's efforts isn't easy. They came looking for wins, and leave without any. In Hobart, there was little to see and less to rue. They came up against the competition's form seamer, Mitchell Starc, whose dead-eye yorkers and left-arm angle were enough to blow away the top and tail of Scotland's order after Michael Clarke invited them to bat first under menacing skies. This was no dead rubber and Australia meant business. Failure to win would have meant a quarter- final date with South Africa and a semi-final away at Auckland's Eden Park, where they have already lost once this tournament.
With the bat, Scotland's failings were familiar and betrayed their inexperience at this level and lack of exposure to bowling of this pace, accuracy and quality. Half the batsmen were simply out-classed: Kyle Coetzer was excruciatingly worked over by Starc, before nibbling for an 11-ball duck; Mitchell Johnson had Freddie Coleman stuck on his crease; Matt Machan battled brilliantly before a Pat Cummins delivery spat up at him. The other half, however, fluffed their lines: Calum MacLeod shot out of the blocks, indeed almost doubling his tournament tally, before nailing a cut straight to point; skipper Preston Mommsen played a simply horrid pull to Shane Watson; Richie Berrington contrived to find cover from a Glenn Maxwell half-volley. Only some lusty lower-order hitting from Josh Davey and Michael Leask took them to 130, a total the bowlers had no hope of defending.
Mommsen insisted he would have batted had he won the toss, but his colleagues' scrambled performance belied this statement. Five were dismissed without scoring, with just four reaching double figures. Their curious, haphazard method produced unsurprising results, totalling 130 in just 25.4 overs with Starc four for 14. Australia then made light work of the reply, as they eased to victory in 15.2 overs with Clarke top scoring with 47.
Scotland's errors were both familiar and frustrating. In tricky conditions and against high-quality bowling - indeed bowling that would faze far better, more seasoned players - Scotland should have been desperate to survive until the 35th over, even if crawling along at just three or four runs an over, to see what was possible from there. Instead, looseness, panic and wild slays meant the only chance they gave themselves was salvation by rain.
Scotland, rightly, and like the other associate nations, wish to be judged on the same scale as their more experienced and lavishly resourced opponents when World Cup time comes. The inquest into Scotland's performance - which needn't be nearly as depressing as England's - will start today, when the attempts to stave off the threat of the looming reduction in size of the World Cup will continue, too.
How, though, to eradicate these repeated errors? How to crack this World Cup duck? The only way, of course, to become accustomed to bowling of Starc's quality is to face it more regularly, and Mom-msen said as much post-match.
"We wanted to come out and we wanted to stand up against the Australians. We knew that they would come hard with pace and as hard as you prepare that's a very difficult thing to prepare for if you've not really been through those experiences very often. You have net bowlers the day before games, but no one in those nets is heading up towards 145-50kmph and when you're out in the middle things are amplified and it is a challenge.
"How we get more experience facing that sort of bowling and being put under that sort of pressure, I'm not sure. But certainly some sort of programme needs to be in place so that we are exposed to that level of cricket so that we are getting better."
He is right. Unless Scotland have regular fixtures against the top teams, they will arrive at the showpiece events hamstrung by the same naivety and muddled thinking that riddled their batting yesterday. For the immediate future, Mommsen is looking across the Irish Sea for inspiration.
"I think we have to go back to associate cricket and dominate every game we play. We have the capabilities to do that and whenever World Cup qualifying tournaments come round we have to go out there and make sure we finish at the top and we qualify for every tournament. You look at what Ireland have done. The key for them is that they keep qualifying for these tournaments so their players build up that bank of experience and when the tough situations come, the opportunities to win those close games, they seem to take them."
l India extended their unbeaten record with a six-wicket victory over Zimbabwe in their final group match. Suresh Raina (110) and captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni (85) combined in an unbeaten fifth- wicket partnership of 196 at Eden Park. Zimbabwe captain Brendan Taylor marked his last international before taking up an English county contract by scoring 138 in his team's 287 all out from 48.5 overs.
ICC World Cup - Pool A: Scotland 130 (M A Starc 4-14) v Australia 133-3. Australia win by 7 wkts.
ICC World Cup - Pool B: Zimbabwe 287 (B R M Taylor 138, S C Williams 50) v India 288-4 (S K Raina 110 no, M S Dhoni 85 no). India win by 6 wkts.
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