Brandon McMullen suggested Scotland are “not far away from beating the best team in the world” after scoring 60 in their narrow defeat to Australia in the T20 World Cup.
England had beaten Namibia earlier, meaning Scotland needed a win to progress from their group to the Super Eight.
However, Australia surpassed the target of 181 with just two balls remaining.
“Obviously it’s very disappointing for us as a team,” McMullen said. “We’ve played really well in this tournament so far and our confidence was really high going into today’s game.”
“We’ve proven that we can compete at this high level with the best players in the world, and tonight we proved once again that we’re not far away from beating the best players in the world.”
Conspiracy theories were rife before the match because a loss for Australia would mean the elimination of one of their biggest rivals for the title.
“I think Australia are a world-class cricket team and have been for many years,” McMullen said. “They always put up a good fight, they never let it be easy so I’m pleased it was a close game today.”
McMullen’s 60 off 34 balls gave Scotland the highest score by an associate team against Australia and a realistic chance of sealing a shock victory.
“We started well in the first half of the match and the first innings but we just couldn’t make up for it with our bowling,” he said. “I think we bowled well at times.”
“We had a great first half, especially, and then we had some big overs in the second half that let us down. Unfortunately it wasn’t a good day for us today, but we learned a lot from this game and it was a great experience.”
“I really enjoyed myself at the World Cup and I’ll come back stronger next time.”
Teammate Michael Jones described McMullan’s outstanding performance as “an absolute superstar, a fantastic player” and expressed pride at the team’s “seriously taking on arguably the best T20 team in the world”.
The batsman added that he “can’t wait to play against Australia again” when Australia visit Scotland in September for a three-match T20 series.