Scotland captain Kyle Coetzer insists they have to use the experience of facing “high-class” cricket after they were brutally swept aside by India.
Scotland were given a chastening lesson in elite-level cricket from India, who kept alive their T20 World Cup semi-final hopes with an eight-wicket win in Dubai.
The Indian bowling attack pinned Scotland down for 85 runs and their reply took just six overs, as KL Rahul (50) and Rohit Sharma (30) made hay towards the finish line.
After an impressive display in their 16-run loss against New Zealand, this was a much more hard-hitting defeat.
“The experience is everything for our group of players and our organisation,” said Coetzer. “Obviously today didn’t go the way we wanted, but we have to go through days like today to see better days later on further down the road.
“It is very important for our guys to experience that, see the high-class cricket that India played and we were not at the races, but they forced us to not be at the races with the high class execution of their skills.
“I am still extremely proud of the guys, but we have a lot of learning to do and we have to go through days like this to improve.
“If you stack up the number of games that some of them have played in T20 cricket compared to some of our guys, as well as stacking up playing in these conditions and using the skills on show that they have, we were always going to be up against it.
“They showed how to use the surface, they showed how to execute yorkers, their spinners showed variation and plenty of mystery and when you face bowling like that for the very first time, it is always going to be hard.
“Not that I don’t back all of our players, I do, and we will go from strength-to-strength from here.”
Coetzer went early and after an enterprising start, George Munsey (24) chipped Mohammad Shami to Hardik Pandya. Ravi Jadeja removed Richie Berrington and Matthew Cross in the same over to leave Scotland reeling.
Michael Leask looked to be getting in gear but he became Jadeja’s third wicket for 21 and Shami (3-15) returned to mop up the tail as Scotland were all out for 85.
Rahul and Sharma made light work of the Scottish bowlers, as Virat Kohli’s men kept up their aspirations of catching New Zealand in second spot.
Scotland, who had lost Josh Davey prior to the game through injury, conclude their tournament on Sunday against Pakistan and decisions will be made on whether any changes are made to the side.
“We will go into the game as confident as we can be,” said Coetzer. “The guys took some heavy punches today that is for sure, the guys are hurting, but we have to pick ourselves up and try and put on a show in what could be our last game of cricket together as a group for some time.
“It has been a good seven weeks as a group and we are extremely proud of what we have achieved, there are perhaps a few doors left open that we haven’t been able to go through, but that is for us to deal with when we get home.
“You want to give as much opportunity to as many players as you can – opportunities like this don’t come around very often. But at the same time we’re not in a position to be giving away caps when they’re full international games.
“It’s a Catch-22 at times. You want to give exposure to people and we believe in everyone in our squad, but it’s tough decisions every time you put a team on the field.”
