All-rounder Gavin Hamilton insists the players must take full responsibility for their World Cup qualifying campaign after it came to a dismal end against Afghanistan.

Scotland's hopes of qualifying for the 2011 tournament were over prior to Sunday's fifth-place play-off, but still they did themselves no justice slumping to an 89 run loss at Willowmoore Park.

The Scots picked up just five wins out of ten in South Africa as they marked their first foray into being a full-time professional outfit in the worse possible way.

And former Yorkshire all-rounder Hamilton, who has 31 one-day international caps, believes the players failure to cope with pressure was the main reason behind their World Cup qualifying downfall.

"It would have been our fourth World Cup so there is no room for excuses," said Hamilton. "The onus is now on the players, we have been given full-time back and there is nowhere we can turn if we don't perform.

"We need to make sure we are improving in every tournament we go to and if we are not showing improvement then that isn't really good enough.

"We cannot afford to let our standards slip again because we know change and improvements aren't going to happen overnight."