NELSON (New Zealand): Scotland have another chance to revive a World Cup campaign that has fallen below their own expectations when they play Bangladesh in the Pool ‘A’ match at Nelson’s Saxton Oval on Thursday.

Bangladesh have one win to their credit — a 105-run victory over Afghanistan — shared points with Australia from a washed-out match in Brisbane and, with another win, could take a major step toward the tournament quarter-finals.

The larger share of pressure may fall on Scotland who came to the World Cup determined to prove themselves competitive, not only against other associate nations but against Test-playing opponents.

They lost by only three wickets to New Zealand, went down to England by 119 runs, then lost by one wicket to Afghanistan in a thriller that left them still looking for their first-ever World Cup win.

“I think in terms of the pressure on the Scotland team, we’ve reached halfway point in this tournament,” Scotland captain Preston Mommsen said. “Unfortunately we don’t have a win, which is disappointing but at the same time we’ve had some invaluable experiences during those three games.

“It’s the first World Cup for many of the players so we’ve been exposed to things we’ve never been exposed to. We’re all in a much better place.”

Mommsen admitted Scotland’s confidence took a blow in the loss to Afghanistan and said they now have to pick themselves up to play Bangladesh in a match they have also marked as winnable.

“To lose that game was very disappointing for all the 15 players, but we’ve had a good couple of days’ break, clean break from cricket,” he said.

Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Mortaza said Bangladesh ‘expect to win’ on Thursday and, while their loss to Sri Lanka was a setback, they remained confident of reaching the quarter-finals.

They need to do their best to secure that on Thursday, however, as they have tough matches remaining against England and New Zealand.

“We have a great chance to go through to the quarter-final and the boys are really looking forward for that,” he said.

“We’ve got a match against Scotland and if we can play better cricket here, hopefully the confidence we can take into the England match.”

Teams (from):

BANGLADESH: Tamim Iqbal, Anamul Haque, Mominul Haque, Mohammad Mahmudullah, Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mashrafe Mortaza (captain), Nasir Hossain, Sabbir Rahman, Soumya Sarkar, Rubel Hossain, Taskin Ahmed, Taijul Islam, Arafat Sunny, Shafiul Islam.

SCOTLAND: Preston Mommsen (captain), Kyle Coetzer, Richie Berrington, Freddie Coleman, Matthew Cross, Josh Davey, Alasdair Evans, Hamish Gardiner, Majid Haq, Michael Leask, Matt Machan, Calum MacLeod, Safyaan Sharif, Rob Taylor, Iain Wardlaw.

Umpires: Simon Fry and Bruce Oxenford (both Australia).

TV umpire: Rod Tucker (Australia).

Match referee: David Boon (Australia).

Published in Dawn March 5th , 2015

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