Scottish captain on how WC99 is about damage limitation
Tony Munro - 21 May 1999

Scotland captain, George Salmond, is adamant his team will not suffer a let-down and drop in intensity for its remaining matches following his country's gutsy World Cup debut against Australia last Sunday.

"For us, this (the World Cup campaign) is a 100% case of damage limitation. We do not want to face a hammering against the other Test countries. It's all about minimalisation," Salmond said.

He added said on Tuesday there is no way his team would "walk" through Thursday's match against Pakistan to save itself for the "wooden-spoon" clash of Group A against Bangladesh.

"There is no danger of that. With four of our regular players having to make way for the pros, there is going to be competition for the guys in the team to keep their places."

The 29 year old said his boys were glad to be finally in amongst it.

"Apprehension had built up with all the hype and we're just happy to get it (the first match) behind us. It was good to get out on the pitch and get an edge on a few balls.

Now we'll concentrate on getting our feet back on the ground."

The team was satisfied with its performance, Salmond added.

"It was nice to get a few of them out.

"Let's put this in context. This team (Australia) has bowled out the West Indies for 51 and England were bowled out by this team in one-day finals in Australia for just over 100," Salmond said proudly.

The rationale for his novel approach in charging the Australian pace bowlers, including Glenn McGrath, was simple:

"The Aussies bowled quite tightly at the start with two or three slips and I thought I'd try to change that. I thought if I just tried to stay out there was a chance I'd probably just edge one."

The Scottish skipper was elated with the crowd support.

"It was great. It's funny to think of how many times I have played for Scotland before and it was the first time we''d played with that sort of support.

"They were prepared to travel 350 miles to come up from London to watch it. Fabulous."

He said he was hopeful the creditable performance against a team like Australia would have a positive effect for the game back home.

"Even if they don't know much about cricket, hopefully they will at least be aware of us."