Alex McLeish's side won its Nations League group in November, sealing a qualification play-off place for next year's finals in the process, and they may well need that fallback option on this evidence.

Kazakhstan, 77 places below its opponent in the FIFA rankings, roared out of the blocks and was two up inside 10 minutes at Astana Arena through Yuriy Pertsukh and Yan Vorogovskiy's first international goals.

Those lessons were not heeded as Baktiyor Zainutdinov's headed third effectively put the contest to bed shortly after half-time.

Scotland came into this meeting having lost only one of their previous 10 competitive games but any positivity was swiftly punctured by Pertsukh.

Alexander Merkel clipped a ball over the top for the Astana midfielder, who controlled deftly before rifling a left-foot volley in off the crossbar, and things quickly got worse for the visitor.

Kazakhstan's second owed much to a fine assist from Islambek Kuat, who slipped a sublime pass inside left-back Graeme Shinnie for Vorogovskiy to slide home at the back post.

Kuat went close himself, a dipping effort from distance forcing Scott Bain to tip over, but the hosts did add a third six minutes into the second period as Zainutdinov rose superbly to guide Gafurzhan Suyumbayev's left-wing delivery back across goal and in.

Kazakhstan goalkeeper Dmytro Nepogodov made a smart stop to deny Stuart Armstrong as Scotland belatedly threatened, but that opening was the best McLeish's side could muster, leaving last year's Nations League promotion feeling like a distant memory.