Scotland have 'huge psychological advantage'

Scotland captain Preston Mommsen believes his team will take "a huge psychological advantage" into their match against Afghanistan in Dunedin after their 150-run victory in the most recent meeting between the two teams.

The sides met in the UAE shortly before the World Cup and although they won a match each, with Afghanistan taking the first game equally comfortably by eight wickets, it was the second game which Mommsen was naturally keen to focus on.

Scotland only made 213 for 7 but then skittled Afghanistan for 63 as Josh Davey, who has claimed seven wickets in his first two World Cup matches, bagged 6 for 28 and Iain Wardlaw 4 for 22.

"We take a huge amount of confidence from that game in Abu Dhabi, huge psychological advantage, I think," Mommsen said. "We had a clear, clear strategy and tactic against them, and I'm pretty sure that we'll resort to the same formula tomorrow."

However, Mommsen insists his team will not be complacent against a team that pushed Sri Lanka to the brink and has won five of the eight ODIs the teams have played against each other. It is the Afghanistan pace attack - Dawlat Zadran, Shapoor Zadran and Hamid Hassan - which will be gaining most attention with Scotland's batting not yet firing as a unit in the tournament with totals of 142 and 184 against New Zealand and England.

"We've played a lot of cricket against them in recent times, and we know that they do have good ammunition in their pace attack," he said. "We expect them to use their skills. It is a fresh wicket, so we'll have to play pretty tight cricket up front and negotiate that new ball, and hopefully get them back in their second and third spells and try and score then. But they are a very handy attack, and we'll respect that."

Mommsen is aware that Afghanistan can be an especially dangerous team if they are allowed an early foothold in an innings, particularly with the ball, which then stirs the emotions. That was on display when they reduced Sri Lanka to 51 for 4 before being confronted by the class of Mahela Jayawardene and grit of Angelo Mathews.

"That's something we've spoken about. If we get the opportunity to take a hold of the game, that's something we need to do. If you give them a sniff, then that sort of gets them going, gets their confidence up, and that's something that we have to make sure doesn't happen, and hopefully we can negate that from ball one.

"Generally a Scotland-Afghanistan game is quite feisty and there's quite a bit of passion on display, quite a bit of aggression, and I think tomorrow will be no different."

Mommsen also hopes that the strong Scottish support in Dunedin will provide extra impetus for the side, who are used to playing at venues where the crowd is very much in favour of Afghanistan.

"We're used to playing against Afghanistan in the UAE where they have thousands and thousands of support, and that genuinely does make a difference for the way they play. Hopefully for once we'll have more support than they'll have, and that'll give us an extra edge."