PRESTON Mommsen saluted three Aberdonians as the success stories of Scotland's winless Cricket World Cup campaign.
The Scots travelled Down Under with high hopes of forging a first-ever win at cricket's biggest tournament. They even had the loftier aim of toppling one of the ICC's Full Member nations during their six-game campaign.
Instead they will reflect on a number of missed opportunities as they head home this week, having been preceded back to these shores by their most senior player Majid Haq who was sent packing for a breach of team discipline.
Yet, Mommsen remained upbeat in the wake of his side's final defeat to tournament favourites Australia and, in the performances of Kyle Coetzer, Matthew Cross and Josh Davey, he found plenty to be happy about.
Former Stoneywood-Dyce batsman Coetzer entered the record books with his 156 against Bangladesh - the highest individual score by an Associate nation player at any World Cup.
Cross, a product of Aberdeenshire, enhanced his reputation as one of the most promising young wicketkeepers in the game, only Denesh Ramdin and MS Dhoni ending the group stages with more dismissals than the 22-year-old Scot.
His stumping of England's James Taylor, a Nottinghamshire team-mate, was one of the highlights of Scotland's campaign.
Davey, meanwhile, was the joint second leading wicket-taker with 15 victims including superstars of the game like Kumar Sangakkara, Tillakaratne Dilshan and Shane Watson.
"A few of the guys can be really pleased with their performances and we take pride in that as a team," sad Mommsen.
"Kyle's innings really showed that we can perform on this kind of stage and gave us all a lot of confidence. Matthew has been consistent throughout and will benefit from performing at this level while Josh can be rightly proud of what he has achieved."
Despite failing to secure that elusive win, Mommsen claims his side are heading in the right direction. He added: "We are returning home a stronger and better team than we were at the start of the tournament. Now we look forward to the T20 World qualifiers in the summer and have to make sure we qualify for that."
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