Taylor: "A tour of mixed emotions"

Rob Taylor has been writing his ICC World Cup Blog for All Out Cricket. The final installment is available below:

So it’s all over. My first and possibly last World Cup: what an experience it has been. The warm-up games of six weeks ago, when we thumped Ireland and narrowly lost to the West Indies, seem like a distant speck in the past.

What have Scotland as a team, and me personally, learnt from playing at the 2015 Cricket World Cup?

Personally, it has been a tour of mixed emotions. I had the massive high of hearing my name being called out to represent my country in the first game (every cricketer’s dream), and then I managed to coax Brendon McCullum to not get hold of one of my deliveries, skying it to deep square-leg, only for it to be dropped.

In that game we had New Zealand seven wickets down chasing a small total but ultimately we didn’t have enough runs on the board. Had we done things slightly better that day, anything could have happened.

Then came a low point: finding out I wasn’t playing the second game against England at Christchurch. England had just been beaten convincingly by McCullum and his Blackcaps and all the talk was about whether we’d be the first group of Scottish players to beat England in an ODI. We thought we had a great chance. But again, despite doing well in patches, we couldn’t chase down their total having restricted them to 303.

Heading into our third game there was genuine optimism at beating Afghanistan, this game was pin pointed as the game Scotland would win to secure our first ever World Cup win.

Again, we didn’t get enough runs and, although we had them nine wickets down in the end, Shenwari and Shapoor Zadran would go on to have the last laugh. It was an agonising one-wicket defeat. It was he closest we had come to winning a game. Would we get another chance to come that close?

Realistically, Bangladesh were our next best chance to claim a win. A first World Cup century for Scotland thanks to Kyle Coetzer – the highlight of the World Cup for us – was a moment when we showed we could perform at the top level.  It was an innings of perfect timing, holding our batting together and with over 300 on the board it was half a job well done. Sadly, it would remain half a job well done and Bangladesh never really fell below the required rate chasing our total down.

In the camp the disappointment was palpable. We could no longer qualify for the second half of the tournament and we hadn’t put a complete performance together once. But the learning we were taking from each game was invaluable.

As a bowler, watching from the sidelines is one of the worst places to be. You desperately want to be out there with your teammates and when things aren’t going well you want to be able to ask the captain to throw you the ball. But you can’t. You feel like you’re just a spectator.

Having worked hard in the nets while not playing it was great to get back in the side for the game against Sri Lanka and although they amassed 363, to only concede 48 runs off my ten overs felt like a point proven. I’d felt who knows what could have happened had I been there to tell the captain to give me the ball in those close games.

The pleasing thing for me in that game wasn’t the runs scored off my bowling but more the areas I bowled. I had the best seat in the house to watch Sangakkara bat while in the best form of his life. Yes, I didn’t get him out but he didn’t ever get on top of me either and, personally, I felt that it was a moment where I proved to myself that I could perform against the best players in the world.

Something else for us to remember fondly is Josh Davey’s performance with the ball throughout the tournament. He ended the group stages with 15 wickets to his name to sit alongside Starc, Boult and Shami at the top of the wicket-taking column. His consistent performances again proved that we have individuals in our team that can perform at the very top level against the very best.

Our final game against Australia was a great game to end our tournament on. We were lucky enough to play both host countries and to finish under the lights against Australia at Hobart was special.

In October we began our World Cup journey with two weeks training in Hobart and to finish it there felt quite fitting. Again we didn’t put in a complete performance and Starc and Cummins blew us away with the ball, and although the rain could have saved us, Australia bullied their way to chase our score of 131.

Overall it has been an amazing experience. Some players performed brilliantly and as a squad we can say we competed at a World Cup and held our own at times. We had some of the best teams in tough positions, and hopefully we’ve helped in proving to the ICC that Associates deserve a place at future World Cups.