Spirited Scotland upbeat for big matches

There has been a fair bit to like about Scotland in this World Cup. Josh Davey is equal sixth on the tournament wicket tally. Kyle Coetzer's 156 against Bangladesh is so far the sixth-highest individual score. Scotland's best total of 318 is higher than anything made in this campaign by England, India, Afghanistan or UAE. There is just one problem: they haven't won a game.

And life will not get any easier for them in their final two matches before heading home. Qualification for the quarter-finals is a dream that has now disappeared, but the goal of winning a World Cup match for the first time remains. Unfortunately for Scotland, they close out their tour against two in-form Full Members - Sri Lanka and Australia - this week in Hobart.

That is not to say they have no hope - the have certainly taken inspiration from Ireland's success, and Bangladesh's dumping of England from the tournament - but everything would need to click for them to have any chance of an upset. Scotland's captain Preston Mommsen said on the eve of Wednesday's game against Sri Lanka that finishing on a high was their goal.

"We see two very big opportunities ahead of us, starting with Sri Lanka tomorrow," Mommsen said. "We don't get the opportunity to play against Full Members very often, so to have two in the space of a few days is something very exciting for all of us. Results wise it's not been the most perfect World Cup for us, but we've got two great opportunities and that's the way we're looking at it.

"We had a definite goal of winning at least one game at this World Cup, something we've not yet been able to do. But looking back at the first four games we've played some good cricket, some very good cricket at times. We know we've just not played that good cricket for long enough periods of time to close out games.

"We've been in a couple of winning positions and maybe through lack of experience playing on this stage, we've not been able to win those games. We look back and we're proud of the cricket we've played. But at the moment we're still excited about the opportunity the next two games presents."

Scotland have played Sri Lanka only once before, and the memories will not be pleasant for the Scots. In Edinburgh in July 2011, Sri Lanka posted 284 for 7 and then skittled Scotland for 101. Lasith Malinga was the major obstacle to Scottish competitiveness - he collected 5 for 30, including three wickets in his first four overs.

Malinga's unusual action and variations make him a difficult man to prepare for, and Scotland have found a novel way of replicating at least part of Malinga's style. The unlikely source is Scotland's assistant coach Paul Collingwood, whose own seam bowling style is about as far from Malinga's as is humanly possible.

"Colly has a very good worked action in the nets that he is able to kind of throw as Malinga bowls," Mommsen said. "That's the way we've simulated his action. Obviously it's something that's different and something we've done some thorough preparation on. We expect to take our time against him. He was pretty devastating against us in Edinburgh and we can't let that happen again."

Malinga has nine wickets at 31.33 in this tournament so far and is Sri Lanka's leading wicket-taker. By comparison, Scotland's top bowler, Davey, has claimed 11 at 19.09, placing him behind only Trent Boult, Tim Southee, Mitchell Starc, Daniel Vettori and Mohammed Shami on the World Cup tally.

"That's a very pleasing stat for us," Mommsen said. "One of the things we looked at coming into this tournament was we wanted individuals to feature in those rankings.

"So to have someone so highly ranked in terms of wickets, that's something we're very proud of as a unit, definitely. Kyle Coetzer's performance the other day, that's also something that lets people know who we are. That's something we need to do more of."