Scotland look to spring a surprise after late call-up

vs West Indies, Kolkata, February 7
vs Italy, Kolkata, February 9
vs England, Kolkata, February 14
vs Nepal, Mumbai, February 17

Scotland looked to have blown their shot at this World Cup when they finished behind Netherlands, Italy and Jersey at the Europe Regional Final qualifier - only for a late call from the ICC in January to see them brought in as replacements for Bangladesh, who refused to play their scheduled games in India over security concerns.

As the highest-ranked team not already going to the tournament, Scotland were the next cab off the rank, but they have good recent pedigree at the T20 big dance. In 2021, they turned over Bangladesh in the group stage to reach the Super 6s for the first time; at the next edition, they notched a first win over West Indies; and then in 2024, they were narrowly edged out of qualification from their group by England on net run rate.

Their challenge in India is twofold. With barely a fortnight's notice, the staff at Cricket Scotland have been "working around the clock" to get the squad together and in the right place - both mentally and physically - to compete in a global tournament. On top of that, Scotland haven't played a T20I since losing to Jersey in the Hague in their final game at July's qualifier.

In their favour is the fact that there are so many familiar faces in the squad, with just four changes to the group that gave England a scare and ran Australia close in the Caribbean 18 months ago - which includes the addition of former New Zealand batter Tom Bruce, via his Scottish ancestry. If they can get up to speed quickly, they will hope to bloody another nose or two.

Scotland's last competitive fixtures came in the 50-over format in Canada last September, as part of the Cricket World Cup League Two. They had been training indoors over the winter, before flying out to India at the last minute for warm-ups against Afghanistan and Namibia.

Left-arm spinner Mark Watt has been around the Scotland set-up for a decade and is set to compete in his fifth T20 World Cup but his abilities still come as a surprise to some. His bag of T20 tricks includes handwritten notes and a "long ball" delivered from 24-25 yards, which almost wrongfooted a couple of Australians at the last World Cup.

Scotland could also hand a debut to whippy seamer Zainullah Ihsan, who learned the game playing tape-ball cricket in Afghanistan before moving to Scotland and coming through the age-group system.

Scotland's captain, Richie Berrington, is 38 and has been on the scene for the best part of two decades, but said last year that he has no plans for retirement. There are a few players in their mid-30s, such as Michael Leask (35), Chris Greaves (35), Safyaan Sharif (34) and Bruce (34) - but given Scotland are riding high in Cricket World Cup League Two, with hopes of getting to next year's 50-over event, you'd imagine no one is looking to bow out just now.

1 George Munsey, 2 Michael Jones, 3 Brandon McMullen, 4 Richie Berrington (capt), 5 Tom Bruce, 6 Matt Cross (wk), 7 Michael Leask, 8 Mark Watt, 9 Chris Greaves, 10 Brad Wheal, 11 Safyaan Sharif