Cricket: Scotland tour offers a peek into the future

A glance at February's World Cup draw explains why Scotland's game against a New Zealand XI, starting at Lincoln today, has extra significance for the tourists.

The Scots, one of four qualifiers outside the 10 test-playing nations for the cup, will play New Zealand in their opening group A clash in Dunedin on February 17.

By that point, New Zealand will have kicked off the tournament against Sri Lanka in Christchurch and will either be satisfied at having made a solid start to the cup, or be needing to get on the board, depending on the outcome of that first game at Hagley Oval.

The Scots, coached by former New Zealand player and Northern Districts coach Grant Bradburn, have come off three lead-up games in Australia, which produced hefty losses to Tasmania and a Queensland Academy of Sport team, and a win over the Tasmanians.

Captain Preston Mommsen said it had been a highly worthwhile exercise and hoped for more of the same on the New Zealand leg of their trip.

"We want to get used to the conditions, get used to the combinations that are going to work for us leading up to, and in the World Cup," he said.

"Ideally we want to put in good performances in these four games. This leg of the tour is more playing intensive and less focus on training. It's good for us to get into that mode and playing good standard of cricket."

Scotland have played just two official ODIs against New Zealand, for a six-wicket loss at the 1999 World Cup and an eight-wicket defeat six years ago, but a strong New Zealand A side piled on 369 for six against them in Edinburgh two months ago.

The Scots have games against Canterbury on Friday, and an invitational XI and Otago at Lincoln next week.

The Irish are also touring and kick off a four-game visit against Northern Districts in Hamilton tomorrow.

New Zealand XI v Scotland
Lincoln, today
NZ XI: Brendon McCullum (c), Tom Latham, Martin Guptill, Dean Brownlie, Corey Anderson, Colin Munro, Luke Ronchi, Dan Vettori, Nathan McCullum, Kyle Mills, Matt Henry, Mitchell McClenaghan.
Scotland: Preston Mommsen (c), Kyle Coetzer, Calum MacLeod, Hamish Gardiner, Matt Machan, Richie Berrington, Matthew Cross, Freddie Coleman, Josh Davey, Rob Taylor, Michael Leask, Iain Wardlaw, Alasdair Evans, Majid Haq, Safyaan Sharif, Gordon Goudie.