Scotland give West Indies scare in warm-up

SCOTLAND confirmed they are capable of claiming a first-ever World Cup win after coming within a whisker of beating West Indies in their final warm-up match in Sydney.

Chasing 314 for victory, Scotland fell just three runs short after opener Kyle Coetzer’s 96 and Richie Berrington’s blistering 66 from 44 balls.

Scotland thrashed Ireland by 179 runs on Tuesday and looked set to claim another significant win over the Windies when they needed 14 from the last 13 balls.

But Berrington was then run out by Andre Russell and an otherwise composed chase began to fray as Scotland lost four for seven at the end to fall narrowly short.

In their previous two trips to the World Cup - in 1999 and 2007 - Scotland have never won a match, but appear capable of changing that over the next month.

They face a tough start to their tournament against co-hosts New Zealand in Dunedin next Tuesday, but have targeted fixtures against Group A rivals Bangladesh and fellow associate nation Afghanistan for their breakthrough success.