Bristol, June 23 (IANS) Scotland captain Kathryn Bryce admitted her side fell short of a winning total after their Women’s T20 World Cup campaign ended with a defeat to defending champions New Zealand on Tuesday here at County Ground.

Scotland, who posted 131/7 after a promising start before New Zealand chased it down with six wickets in hand, were eliminated from the tournament, with Bryce identifying the final overs of the innings as the decisive phase while also drawing positives from another competitive performance against higher-ranked opposition.

Bryce felt Scotland had laid the platform for a much stronger total before losing momentum towards the end of their innings.

“I think we started off again fantastically with the bat, and then probably a little tough period there at the end, probably felt like we left maybe 20 runs out there and probably the difference at the end,” Bryce said post match.

A major positive for Scotland was another accomplished innings from Darcey Carter, whose unbeaten 72 anchored the total after she had earlier converted promising starts into substantial contributions.

Bryce was full of praise for the young batter’s progress, as she said, “Absolutely fantastic. She had a big score against the West Indies, but was kind of really disappointed with how she managed to kind of continue through the innings and I think she learnt a lot from that and made a couple of games, learned some from that and been able to put it in practice. So yeah, I’m really proud of how she’s been able to go today.”

Scotland then struck three times inside the PowerPlay to put New Zealand under pressure, but an unbroken century stand between Izzy Sharp and Brooke Halliday swung the contest decisively in the defending champions’ favour.

Bryce believed the opportunities created during that partnership could have altered the complexion of the chase.

“Yeah, massively. I think we did really well to get those few early wickets and then had a couple of chances in there as well, and if one of them stuck, it maybe opens the game up a bit more, but they had a fantastic partnership and just were really smart through that middle period,” she said.

She also acknowledged the quality of New Zealand’s running between the wickets, which kept the scoreboard moving even when boundaries were hard to come by.

“Yeah, it was pretty tough, like the bigger boundaries and probably a bit slower out there as well, hard to judge kind of where you stood on the boundaries compared to Headingley. So, yeah, I think they ran really well out there,” the all-rounder stated.

Despite Scotland’s exit, Bryce was encouraged by the strides her team made throughout the tournament, particularly with both bat and ball.

“A huge amount. I think, again, the batting was a massive point and I think taking those early wickets as well, probably, I haven’t taken as many powerplay wickets as earlier in the competition, and I think that really set us up to be able to squeeze through the middle period and probably just let them away a little bit at the period,” she added.

–IANS

vi/