Cricket World Cup: Scots stronger for experience - Preston Mommsen

Scotland lost by seven wickets to Australia

Despite a whitewash of defeats at the World Cup, captain Preston Mommsen firmly believes Scotland can look forward with confidence.

"We've come a long way in the last 12 months and we can grow again over the next year," he said following the final group match against Australia.

"Mentally, these six games will make a huge difference.

"It's been an awesome experience and a huge learning experience. We leave the World Cup a better team."

Scotland failed to achieve their objective of a first win at this level, with their run of World Cup defeats stretching to 14 games.

The tournament fizzled out with a crushing seven-wicket loss to Australia but there were some promising individual showings in the previous matches and a squandered opportunity against Afghanistan.

"We were under no illusions about how difficult it would be," Mommsen told BBC Sport.

"But we look back and there were a couple of games where we got into winning positions and couldn't quite close them out, so that's disappointing for us.

"At the same time we've played in tough games and the team is a much better unit because of that.

"It's not just game day, it's everything in between, the media commitments, etc. It all piles on and everything gets amplified. For most of this team, it's our first World Cup."

Asked what lessons he had learned as captain, Mommsen replied: "Composure. Being able to slow a situation down. We lost early wickets against New Zealand in our first game and things just happened so quickly.

"That's something we discussed and really came to terms with and I think it showed in the later innings - against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, in parts. Just being able to play at our tempo.

"We established that batting partnerships are key. They are fundamental to building decent totals and we responded well to that. We put scores on the doors by laying platforms up top.

"From a bowling point of view, wickets are crucial - especially through the middle. We have a pretty impressive strike rate and we can take confidence from that. I'm pretty proud of that."

Scotland now look ahead to the Intercontinental Cup campaign and qualifying for the World Twenty20.

The Associate nations will play in Scotland and Ireland over June and July, with the top six progressing to a pre-tournament qualifying event in host nation India in 2016.

Head coach Grant Bradburn gave Scotland "something like a seven" when asked for marks out of 10.

"We were absolutely gutted not to get over the line against Afghanistan after fighting our way back into the match and really holding the upper hand," he told BBC Sport.

"Against Bangladesh, we played well with the bat and probably got ourselves into a winning position again.

"So we're gutted not to get the 'Ws' but the whole tournament has been a 'W'.

"We get to play a top-tier nation maybe once a year if we're lucky, so we will treasure these experiences and the guys will grow from them.

"We can train and simulate what it's like to face the top sides but until you're actually out there under pressure and facing fatigue that top teams give you constantly, it's really hard.

"It's been good for me to see these guys under pressure and it's given us coaches some real clarity about where we want to take this team."