As a matter of fact, that could be argued to be their best performance in the tournament so far and here lies the reason why their captain Salmond decided to bat after winning the toss. He argued that they had batted first against Australia in that fateful game and hence was hoping for a repeat. What he didn't bargain for was the clinical performance of the West Indies bowlers.

Lara sprung a surprise by giving the new ball to Simmons and Ambrose and one wonders if this is the possible combination the Windies will follow.

However, I suppose, the bowling combination, Ambrose and Walsh or Ambrose and Simmons, made no difference toScotland and in no time was their captain reassured that that batting first was not going to provide the success he was hoping for. Gavin Hamilton again for the fourth match on the row, top scored for Scotland remaining not out in their paltry score of 68.

That score was never going to be anywhere near enough to even make the West Indies break sweat but just getting the 69 runs required to win was not the only issue.

The way this seventh World Cup tournament is structured and the fact that the three teams fighting for two places behind Pakistan in Group B, should add up to the same amount of points means that net run rate is going to prove very vital. If the three teams end up with the same points, then the team that will go forward is the team which has beaten the other in that round. The problem is that if Australia end up beating the West Indies on the weekend, all three teams would have beaten each other. New Zealand beat Australia, but lost to West Indies. Of course, Australia would have beaten theWest Indies, hence the need to go to the next qualifying statistic, which is the net run rate.

Windies were well awake to the situation and Lara and the management elected to try and kill two birds with one stone. They opened up with Simmons and Chanderpaul, two batsmen capable of scoring quickly but also two men who needed a bit of a knock in the middle themselves.

Everything didn't work perfectly for the Windies as they lost Simmons quite cheaply and Stuart Williams, another man needing a knock in the middle for a duck. This brought Lara to the wicket and he along with Chanderpaul, wasted no further time in getting the required runs. The entire innings lasted only 10 overs and one ball which did the run rate absolutely no harm.