Mommsen: Now’s a great time to play England

2015 World Cup

Cricket365
March 8, 2015

Scotland have never won a World Cup match, and are hoping that their clash against England in Christchurch on Monday will change that, given England's severe slump in form in Australasia so far.

England lost badly to Australia and New Zealand, and will be looking to bounce back against their neighbours, but Scotland skipper Preston Mommsen feels this is the ideal time to get one past their Test-playing opponents.

Mommsen said: "Obviously, it is a good time to be playing them, but at the same time, we're pretty focused on our own game, and that's been the mindset over the last couple of days in the preparation leading up to the game.

"I don't think I could really put into words what it would do for this team, for Scottish cricket on the whole, and what it would do for cricket back home right now.

"We have yet to beat a full member team, and that is something that is a major goal for the current team and something we're working very hard towards. We know that we're not far away from that.

"We're up for this game, we'll be fighting for it, there's no doubt about that. We want to win this game and hopefully we can put in a huge performance."

Scotland's coach, Grant Bradburn, was not shocked to see his former Northern Knights mentee Tim Southee do well against England, where he took 7/33. Scotland lost to New Zealand as well, but by three wickets rather than England's eight.

The coach said: "Having coached the Knights and having Tim Southee and Trent Boult in that environment for a number of years, not really, I was not surprised. They're fantastic bowlers at the top of their game.

"I think it vindicated the 10 overs that they bowled at the start of our game in Dunedin (when Scotland collapsed to 12 for four) and would have had any side in the world in trouble.

"We don't read too much into the actual scores, what England scored and what we scored."