'We do feel for Bangladesh' - Scotland chief exec on last-minute World Cup invite

Cricket Scotland's chief executive expressed her sympathy for Bangladesh's players after their eleventh-hour removal from the T20 World Cup as she revealed the extent of the board's last-minute scramble to get their men's squad ready for their opening match on February 7.

Defeats to Italy and Jersey at the Europe Regional Final last July saw Scotland miss out on qualification for the World Cup. But Bangladesh's reluctance to play in India and the ICC's subsequent refusal to shift their fixtures to Sri Lanka at short notice saw Scotland handed a lifeline on Saturday, when they were invited as the highest-ranked side not already going to the tournament.

"We certainly have for the Bangladesh team," Trudy Lindblade, Cricket Scotland's Australian chief executive, said on Monday, when asked if she had sympathy for the side they had replaced.

"Obviously, this is not how we wanted to go to a World Cup. There is a qualification process and nobody wants to qualify or attend or be invited to a World Cup in the way that we have done. We acknowledge it is certainly unique circumstances by our participation, and we do feel for the Bangladesh players."

On whether Scotland expected criticism after qualifying via the back door, Lindblade said: "I wouldn't use those words… People will have their views and they are entitled to their views. All we know is that we have been invited to participate in the World Cup. We are a team that is ranked 14th in the world. We are also a strong team that plays consistently throughout the year.

"That World Cup [qualifier] for us was not how we normally play, and therefore we are just pleased to be at this World Cup… We are happy to step in, although it is unique and challenging circumstances and we absolutely recognise that."

Cricket Scotland were only officially notified of their invitation to the World Cup by ICC chief executive Sanjog Gupta on Saturday, but Lindblade said that they had started to plan for the eventuality a few days previously. "It's been a really busy couple of days for us," she said. "In the office today, it is all hands on deck…

"The Cricket Scotland team is just over 30 staff - that's everything from our coaching staff to office staff and our development team - so we're not very big. This is a lot to do also when we've got two teams touring: we've got the [men's] Under-19s currently playing, and we cannot lose focus from our women in Nepal, who also are trying to qualify for a T20 World Cup.

"Our team is completely inundated with trying to make sure we get our team there, but also we can't do that without the help of the ICC. We've been almost working around the clock… There have been messages on a WhatsApp group at all hours of the night. There might be a three-hour window when none of us are working."

Scotland are due to announce their squad on Monday afternoon after selection meetings over the weekend, and have received assurances from the ICC that their players' applications for Indian visas will be expedited. They are due to travel to India this weekend ahead of warm-up fixtures against Afghanistan and Namibia in Bengaluru on February 2 and 4 respectively.

Scotland's contracted players have been training indoors in recent weeks ahead of their Cricket World Cup League Two series against Namibia and Oman in March and their focus has quickly shifted from winter fitness work to T20 preparation under their new head coach Owen Dawkins, who replaced Doug Watson last month, and his assistant Gordon Drummond.

"We want to be as competitive as we possibly can be at the World Cup," Steve Snell, their head of performance, said, "but I think we are actually quite relaxed in the sense that the pressure is on the other teams with Scotland coming off a very dry winter where, quite frankly, our priority has been on other areas off the field.

"I back ourselves to be really, really competitive, but the other teams have all this preparation time to configure their squads, their gameplan, look at the conditions… The pressure will be on the other teams to beat us, really, because with all that preparation time, we'll certainly be underdogs."

Scotland will face West Indies, Italy and England in Kolkata, then Nepal in Mumbai, with the top two teams from Group B qualifying for the Super 8s stage of the World Cup. They only failed to reach the second phase of the 2024 T20 World Cup via net run rate after a no-result against England and a tight defeat to Australia, and are targeting a top-two finish.

"Success will be qualifying for that group but will I be putting the pressure on the team that we should be doing that? Certainly not. It's a really tough group and all the games are going to be really tough," he said.

"That's the beauty of sport, isn't it, that unpredictable nature? We're definitely going into this tournament as underdogs and now we'll be looking to make some upsets as well."

Scotland have played at six previous men's T20 World Cups, including the last four. They were a late addition to the line-up at the 2009 edition in similar circumstances, when Zimbabwe pulled out of the tournament owing to uncertainty as to whether their players would be granted visas due to the UK government's stance against Robert Mugabe's dictatorship.