I'm very proud of Scotland's performance: Mommsen

Preston Mommsen is starting to get sick of being asked what Scotland are at the World Cup to prove. While Ireland enhanced their reputation significantly as the best of the Associates by beating West Indies in Nelson yesterday, teams like Scotland, Netherlands and Afghanistan find themselves as rank underdogs when they come up against Full Member teams. So was the case before Tuesday's World Cup match between Scotland and New Zealand at Dunedin's University Oval, and so was the case after it.

"From my point of view, I don't feel we have anything to prove here. We're just here to play cricket," stressed Mommsen following defeat. "We've qualified. We actually have to work harder. We have to go through the whole process of playing in a pressurised tournament to win eight games in a row to qualify for a World Cup. So for us being here, it's about playing our cricket and enjoying it, and that is something that's a major focus of this team. At the same time, we realise the importance of showing in a good performance for Associate cricket, and hopefully the performance we put on today it gets people talking and shows people that Associates belong at World Cups."

Associate-level teams are always up against it in World Cups. Barring Ireland, who beat Pakistan in 2007, England in 2011 and now West Indies in 2015, they have struggled to beat top teams. A day after Ireland downed West Indies, Scotland lost to New Zealand but not without a fight in the field. Defending 142, they took seven wickets to leave Mommsen with some positives.

"My initial thoughts are very proud of the performance," he said. "Proud of the fight back and character we showed in the second half. Very disappointed with the first half performance, but Richie [Berrington] and Matthew [Machan] batted beautifully in the middle but unfortunately they couldn't go on to get us a more respectable total. But I think the fighting character, that's something that we're proud of, and overall I think we're happy with the performance today."

Losing the toss had an effect, as a scoreline of 12 for 4 showed, but Mommsen said he would have batted too had he won it. What caught Scotland by surprise was the movement that Trent Boult and Tim Southee got in the first half an hour, which was where the match was lost. "They were getting a fair bit of movement. We didn't anticipate it to move around that much, but I think they showed they're world class performers," said Mommsen. "Boult and Southee showed incredible skill and class. These guys play a lot of cricket and a lot of red ball cricket as well. So if there's any assistance there, they know exactly how to exploit it and they did exactly that. I think from a batting point of view, it's good we've been exposed to that sort of skill this early in the tournament. So it's a massive learning day for us, especially for the top six. Hopefully we can use that to our strength as we look to improve as this tournament goes on."

Following that awful start, Scotland were lifted by a 97-run stand between Machan and Berrington. The pair stroked their way to pleasing half-centuries before falling to Corey Anderson, two wickets that saw Scotland collapse to 142. Still, Mommsen was satisfied with the initial fightback from Machan and Berrington.

"I think it was a natural process to consolidate and they did exactly that. When they got in, the ball was doing a fair bit and they showed great skill to build a platform there," he said. "Then once both of them got in, I think they showed the skill that we're capable of as a batting unit. They're both pretty disappointed that they couldn't go on, because they knew there was a potential 100 on the cards for one of them, which would have been a great thing for Scottish cricket. But it wasn't to be today. A great partnership, however, and disappointed as well that we couldn't scrape together a few more runs from the bottom order."

Having an in-form team in jitters was a big gain from Scotland, and had they held a couple of catches, the result could have been very different. For Mommsen, the chance to expose New Zealand somewhat was another plus point. "I think having them 140 after 7, we showed good skill from our bowlers," he said. "I think it showed that their batters were vulnerable if you're able to keep them under pressure consistently and put the balls in good areas, as any batter is. But at the same time, chasing out a small total might have been a little bit tricky for them, and it might have changed the way their natural game would usually be. So I'm not sure what other teams will make of it, but from a Scottish point of view, we're very proud."

Next up for Scotland is a match against England in Christchurch on February 23. "We're not thinking about anything too far ahead. I think going on today's performance, yes, we're very proud of the performance and fight we showed. England, we'll take a couple days break and look to prepare for that fixture. But obviously they are coming off the back of a heavy defeat and we'll look to pressurise them and keep them down by utilising our strengths," said Mommsen.