Cricket Scotland chair credits World Cup for summer success

After six weeks in Australia and New Zealand in February-March, Scotland came away from the World Cup with the same number of wins as their previous two forays: zero. Looking past raw results though, Cricket Scotland chairman Tony Brian believes the exposure they had against Full Member opposition, including finalists Australia and New Zealand, has played a big role in their success since.

Scotland started the summer with a 275-run win in a four-day match against UAE, then secured first-innings points in a rain-hit draw with Afghanistan in the Intercontinental Cup. They beat Ireland comfortably in a pair of T20Is in June and swept Nepal 2-0 in the first round of the WCL Championship. In between all that was their biggest success: they co-hosted the World T20 Qualifiers and came out co-champions alongside Netherlands.

"Sharing the trophy was a great result and coming as the top seed [among the Associates] going into the T20 World Cup was a wonderful achievement," Brian told ESPNcricinfo. "I think if you talk to the guys, you'll find they learned so much from the Australia and New Zealand World Cup and they actually learned they could be competitive with the big boys. As a result, they've taken a lot of confidence in their own skills and abilities to perform at the top level.

"I think we began to see in this T20 Qualifying tournament the benefits of that and the impact of that as they really began to perform on a big stage in front of sizeable television audiences. I think it's fair to say they were among the best two teams on show in the World T20 Qualifier and I'm still not sure we put our A game properly together. "

Scotland's summer programme wraps up over the next week in Holland where they'll face Netherlands again in a four-day Intercontinental Cup match, followed by two WCL Championship matches on September 14 and 16. A tour of Hong Kong beckons in January - including a four-day I-Cup match, two ODIs and possibly some T20Is as well - before the World Twenty20 in India in March.

Brian, however, is keen to see Scotland with some extra preparation, particularly since the three Asian qualifiers - Oman, Afghanistan and Hong Kong - are due to get game time during the Asia Cup T20 qualifier in the UAE.

"We'll probably do one or more camps in the Middle East or subcontinent," Brian said. "We're still working on that but that's the initial discussions so far. Equally we have to recognise that we have our women playing in the T20 qualifying World Cup in Thailand in November and our Under-19s playing in their own World Cup in Bangladesh in February. So we're looking to how we can make sure we make best use of the money so that all our teams get a really good shot at tournaments they're going in for."

Another of Cricket Scotland's aims is to make sure its administration can keep up with the strides made by the team. New chief executive Malcolm Cannon began his tenure on September 1 and Brian believes his background in marketing may help in creating a more professional environment and in securing sponsorship opportunities.

"I think we're at a very important stage for cricket in Scotland," Brian said. "We've reached a level which is a good level but now we have to push on to the next level both in playing terms and in terms of professionalising the whole operation so that we really can justify the excellent performances that our players put on the field and expand those.

"We've got a new chief executive starting who comes not from a cricket background but from a marketing brand background. We have lots of people in the organisation who know cricketing and player issues inside out. We need to bolt onto that some real marketing professional and brand development expertise so we can move to the next level."

One mission yet to be accomplished is scheduling Full Member fixtures. Cricket Ireland has had reasonable success with them - Australia played an ODI recently in Belfast and will welcome Pakistan and Sri Lanka for 2 ODIs each next summer - and Cricket Scotland wants to catch up.

That task is made slightly tricky with Scotland - in addition to fellow Associates Hong Kong, UAE and Papua New Guinea - not included in the ODI rankings table to be used for 2019 World Cup qualification. These teams will have to play a qualifying tournament regardless of their WCL performance to stay in contention for a World Cup spot. However, Brian said Cricket Scotland has come to terms with that decision by the ICC and is doing what it can to attract Full Members regardless.

"It's a competitive world," Brian said. "Afghanistan and Ireland did better than us over the critical period. We just have to do better the next time around when rankings are decided. In terms of games with other Full Members, it has been an issue and a difficulty but we're beginning I think - and I've talked to Warren [Deutrom] and Ross McCollum at Cricket Ireland - we're beginning to see a little bit of movement.

"I think some of the Full Members realise that it's incumbent on them to open their doors a little more and we're hopeful we'll get more. We're in discussions with two or three Full Members at the moment about possible games. Whether they'll come about depends on their touring programs but hopefully some of it will come about."