T20 World Cup: ‘Scots not far away’ from beating world best’

“We’ve shown that we can compete at this high level against the best players in the world and again, yet again, we showed it tonight that, no, we’re not far away from beating the best in the world.”

Conspiracy theories abounded pre-match because an Australia defeat would eliminate one of their biggest rivals for the title.

“I think Australia is a world-class cricket team – they have been for many, many years,” McMullen said. “They’re always going to put out a good fight – they’re never just going to walk over and let you win, so I’m glad that it was a close game today.”

McMullen’s 60 from 34 balls helped the Scots post the highest total made against Australia by an associate team to give themselves a realistic chance of a shock victory.

“We had a good start in the first half of the game and the first innings and we just couldn’t quite back it up in the bowling,” he said. “I thought we bowled well at times.

“The first half was especially really good. And then you had a few big overs in that back end, which let us down. So, unfortunately, it wasn’t our day today, but I learned a lot from the game and the experience was incredible.

“We’ve really enjoyed ourselves at the World Cup and we’ll be back next time stronger.”

Team-mate Michael Jones, who described McMullan as “an absolute superstar, he’s an amazing player” for his outstanding performance, was proud of how they gave “probably the best T20 team in the world a real run for their money”.

The batter added that “we can’t wait to take them on again” when the Australians visit Scotland for a three-match T20 series in September.