Scotland's hopes of T20 World Cup qualification suffered a major blow as they suffered a six-wicket defeat to Papua New Guinea today at Arbroath to leave them heading into a must-win game against Bangladesh on Tuesday.

Despite a battling performance from captain Kathryn Bryce with the highest individual score of the tournament thus far, a fine run-a-ball innings of 30 from Brenda Tau marshalled a well-judged chase from PNG which was completed with three balls to spare.

For Scotland, Tuesday's match with favourites Bangladesh now becomes a must-win encounter.

"We were below par at the halfway stage and we knew we were going to have to bowl really well to defend that total," said Kathryn Bryce. "I don't think we were at our best with the ball and we didn't execute all our skills and we gave away a few too many runs which cost us in the end.

"[The pitch] was a bit difficult in that we didn't know how it was going to play early on and it was a bit tougher early in the morning, but if we'd played our best game then we probably should have come out on top. We didn't do that today.

"We'll reflect on this game this evening after we've had a chance to think about it for a bit and we just need to keep looking forward in the competition. We're still in with a chance. We know we'll need to play our best game of cricket [against Bangladesh], but now we'll just try and reset ready for Tuesday."