Taylor: "We've shown a lot of character"

Here is Rob Taylor's latest blog, which was written for All Out Cricket

At certain times throughout this tournament we have shown a hell of a lot of character, showing people why we came close to beating the West Indies in the warm-up game. We haven’t, however, quite put the perfect performance together which we need to do to beat a full member team.

Our first game, at Dunedin against New Zealand, was a great experience for the team. We were given an idea of where the bar was set and what we were going to have to deal with. 

Facing the likes of Trent Boult and Tim Southee, who were swinging the ball at 135kph, gave us a good idea of things to come. Likewise, trying to keep batsman like Martin Guptill and Brendon McCullum quiet is never going to be easy. We did show a lot of fight in the first game to recover from 12-4 to reach 143 and then to get New Zealand seven down in their run chase.

We had a few days up in Christchurch ahead of our second game against England. With everything that has gone on in the past year between Scotland and England it would have been the perfect time to beat them – they had previously endured a tough game against New Zealand too, so we were hoping to continue those tough times for them.

We were playing at Hagley Oval, a ground that we have fond memories off, having qualified for the World Cup there, and although it had changed a bit since then it was still a great feeling to be back.

Moeen Ali and Ian Bell compiled a large opening partnership and England looked to be heading for 350+. Again we showed great character and kept them to 303. Costa [Kyle Coetzer] made a well compiled 71 but that was the only real contribution in the run chase, and we were bowled out for 184.

When we returned back to Dunedin a few of us got a run around on the Highlanders Super Rugby ground, a 25,000-seater indoor stadium. Having seen some of their kicking and back line moves, I’m not sure any of us will be getting signed up any time soon. Nor would any of us fancy squaring up to Nasi Manu at 1.90m and 112 kilograms…

Having played two full member nations we then had to chance to play against the other Associate in our group, Afghanistan. Last time we met we bowled them out for 63 in Dubai, so we were hoping for a solid all-round performance.

What we got was an absolute cliff-hanger!

Neither team batted very well but we got ourselves to 210 with a few contributions from the middle order, but mainly thanks to an eighth-wicket partnership of 62 from Evo (Ali Evans) and Maj (Majid Haq).

The next 50 overs were absolutely bizarre. We had them on 85-3 and with some of the shots they were playing we thought an Abu Dhabi repeat was on the cards.

Shenwari was holding the innings together and scoring slowly to begin with but he chose his moment to pounce. Three overs out from the end, and with two wickets left, he whacked Maj [Majid Haq] for three sixes and moved himself to 96. He then went looking for another maximum but could only hole out to Josh [Davey] at cow-corner.

With one wicket left and still 19 runs to win I was fancying our chances and backing the guys to get Scotland’s first ever World Cup win. But with four needed from four balls Shapoor hit a full toss through square-leg and they got over the line.

Again, it was a case of us losing a game we should have won. With our game against Bangladesh also ending in defeat – despite a really good effort with the bat – we’re now out of the tournament but we’ll keep fighting for our first World Cup victory over our last two games.