Festival time, in Edinburgh, houses its fair share of visitors who came dressed for summer but were caught out by the conditions. Those cheap but essential rain coats are always fully stocked in the local tourist emporia for the occasions when gear more suited to the beaches of the Caribbean just does not quite suffice.

When England came to The Grange to play Scotland, we knew the infamous Scottish sunshine was going to be in short supply. Umbrellas were as ubiquitous as pints of beer among the near 6,000 capacity crowd who convened to watch this small slice of cricketing history.

However, it was the guests from south of the border who threatened to rain on Scotland’s parade when they reduced their hosts to just 11-3 after winning the toss. You had to fear the worst when Ryan Watson, Navdeep Poonia and Kyle Coetzer came and went without making a serious impact. You feared that, courtesy of Tim Bresnan’s tidy but effective bowling, the English were about to add to the list of Auld Enemy conquests over the years.

Credit, thus, to Gavin Hamilton and Colin Smith in particular for ensuring that the spectators saw a decent content before showers finally brought an end to proceedings. That the Saltires saw out their reduced 44 overs and made 156 had looked improbable but Hamilton, now strictly a part-time player, rolled back the years – ten to be precise – to when he was named as the finest one-day exponent in all of England.

It was a target that was never likely to be enough. Not with so many of Kevin Pietersen’s men looking to cement their places both in the NatWest Series with South Africa and beyond, and not with a wish to avoid what would have been one of the greatest cricketing upsets. A honourable no result was the best of both worlds in so many respects.

Pietersen’s promise to captain a side that wants to win every time it steps on the field was true to its word. Andrew Flintoff was aggressive throughout his eight overs and teetered on a hat-trick in his last. Bresnan, a late call-up looked like a viable additional option if Ryan Sidebottom and Chris Tremlett fail to respond to treatment.

Samir Patel made a useful, if not spectacular debut. In truth, the only disappointment was Pietersen’s bowling cameo. Then again, it’s unlikely to be repeated against the Proteas. That aside, it was a professional performance, perhaps a nudge to onlooking ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat - and his ECB counterpart David Collier - that these kinds of fixtures should not only be protected amid the race to force more Twenty20 into the calendar but increased.

Scotland now goes into cricketing hibernation until 2009, when the build-up to the qualifiers for the 2011 World Cup begins. England head down the A1 to the Riverside for Wednesday’s Twenty20 international with South Africa, a match you can listen to on Radio Five Live and on the BBC Sport website.

It’s likely these two nations will meet again in two years time. Rain, you can bet, will not be far behind.