IT was nail-biting stuff and not the triumphant march to the play-offs that Scotland had wanted.

However, the Saltires are through to the next stage of the qualifying process for the T20 World Cup.

That bare statistic masks the fact that Pete Steindl's men slumped to a disheartening defeat to the USA in Dubai yesterday, leaving them level on points with Kenya in third place of tough Group B.

They then endured a lengthy and agonising wait during which calculators rather than cricketers took centre stage.

Ultimately Scotland were declared to have edged out the Africans by less than one-hundreth of a run - 0.007 was the official number given.

Coach Steindl was both relieved and realistic when he reflected on a dramatic day in the desert.

He declared: "We'd heard that we had just done enough to get through but there was no great rejoicing when we got the confirmation.

"The fact is that we contrived to lose a game that we should have won and it should never have come down to run-rate."

Indeed, the Scots picked a bad moment to produce the sloppiest display of an inconsistent campaign against a USA side who went into the clash with a single win from six games.

Jan Stander's 31-ball 58 had put the Saltires on course for a huge total.

The Stoneywood-Dyce big-hitter shrugged-off the loss of three early wickets to blast five huge sixes.

Richie Berrington had gone without a run on the board while Calum MacLeod and Preston Mommsen failed to convert promising starts.

However, Stander took the attack to the Americans in spectacular style and looked capable of repeating the heroics that saw him score a T20 century against Namibia last October.

It was not to be, though, Stander eventually edging a simple catch to the keeper leaving his side to rely on a couple of brief cameos.

Safyaan Sharif and Craig Wallace briefly looked the part with 13 and 16no
but Scotland's total of 161-8 was at least twenty short of what looked possible.

Sensing a momentum swing, the USA batsman grabbed the initiative from the start with Steven Taylor and Aditya Mishra punishing the Scottish bowlers as they cruised to 78-0 in nine overs.

Taylor had reached 40 from thirty balls before being bowled by Stander while Elmore Hutchinson was removed by Mommsen.

However, Mishra guided the chase until a dramatic final over during which he was run out for 62 with his side still needing four runs for victory.

Sharif restricted them to just two before pulling up with an injury which looks likely to have ended his tournament.

He was replaced by Berrington who conceded the winning runs from the penultimate delivery.

It was a mark of how closely the Scots had diced with death that, had the USA scored the winning run one ball earlier, Kenya and not Scotland would be through.

As it is they now enter the sudden-death phase where they face Peter Drinnen's Dutch tomorrow (Thu) and only a vastly improved performance will see them extend their interest in reaching Sri Lanka later in the year.

Steindl added: "We're extremely disappointed with today's performance but the guys have to re-group and believe they can turn this around.

"Anything can happen from here."