Hooker Cherry’s double came on his first international start, while wing Van der Merwe’s brace made it six tries in nine Tests in Scotland’s eight-try spree.

Van der Merwe’s Edinburgh wing partner, Darcy Graham, also got in on the act to boost the capital side ahead of their Heineken Champions Cup last 16 trip to Racing 92 on April 4 and Exeter Chiefs’ Stuart Hogg marked his first game as Scotland fly-half with six conversions.

However, it was the Italians who opened the scoring by converting a rolling maul, Zebre Rugby hooker Luca Bigi the beneficiary on five minutes.

The visitors advantage only lasted five minutes, though, as the Scots notched two tries in the blink of an eye. Cherry crossed first from a maul, before Van der Merwe rounded off a superb move after racing down the left wing.

Scotland added a third try on 20 minutes, when a burst of pace from Saracens full-back Sean Maitland opened up the Italian line and Graham swooped on the offload.

The bonus point arrived seven minutes later, when a flowing move to the left wing allowed Glasgow Warriors centre Huw Jones to scamper home.

Cherry added his second try on 43 minutes by finishing off another Scottish maul, before Harlequins scrum-half Scott Steele sped over to continue Scotland’s dominance.

Glasgow centre Sam Johnson added to the rout 16 minutes from time, powering home just to the left of the posts, but the best try was the last one on 70 minutes – a length-of-the-field counter-attack which resulted in a second try for Van der Merwe.

Edinburgh Rugby duo David Cherry and Duhan van der Merwe scored two tries each as Scotland routed Italy 52-10 in the Guinness 6 Nations clash at BT Murrayfield on Saturday.