Scotland fails to sparkle on big occasion

The head of European cricket has lamented the paltry number of spectators who attended the European Championships, which was staged across the west of Scotland from August 3.

Responding to a situation where only 200 supporters turned up - despite free admission - for last Saturday's contest between the hosts and Ireland in Ayr, Richard Holdsworth, the ICC's regional development manager, said he was mystified at the contrast between Scotland and Ireland, where the fan-base is significantly higher.

The opinions of such a high-raking administrator lend weight to the suspicion that 2006 will not go down as a season to remember for Scottish cricket. Quite apart from the dearth of amenities for spectators at some of the European grounds, including a series of gaffes at Cambusdoon, which stretched from a wonky scoreboard and absence of food wagons to the press being requested to relinquish their work benches in aid of a cheese-and-wine party organised by South Ayrshire Council, the atmosphere was funereal, there was no interval entertainment and the local guide to forthcoming events in August did not even mention the event.

One person, who went on Sunday, and stood in the rain for five hours, told The Herald: "Cricket Scotland is selling their supporters short. And their team." He had a point: Wright and his personnel deserve more professional treatment and that is before we even stray into the argument of these players being offered contracts.

Perhaps the still-mysterious departure of Andy Moles established the tone for the year. It has continued with a regular slew of negative publicity from the Poloc batsman's Saleem Sajjad's attack on umpire, Vic Hadcroft, (allied to an absurdly lenient punishment), and Freuchie being warned about their behaviour, to last week's alleged abuse of another official, Gavin Gemmell by Clydesdale's overseas amateur, Ben Laughlin, who is facing disciplinary action. Even the publicity for the Scotland v Pakistan match at the Grange managed to spell Shoaib Akhtar's name wrongly. Wherever you gaze, these litany of controversies and errors hint at an organisation which is toiling to raise the stakes.

"The bottom line is that we need more Scots to get behind their team and it honestly baffles me that the audiences should be so disappointing when the game is such a healthy state," said Holdsworth, whose harassed administrators had to deal with regular demonstrations by protestors at the presence of Israel in the tournament.

"From what I gather, there were only 3000 fans at the one-day international match [at the Grange in Edinburgh] between Scotland and Pakistan - who are one of the best sides in the world - in June," added Holdsworth. "Whereas there were 8000 supporters at the Ireland v England game in Belfast and that figure would have been higher, but for the ground being filled to capacity.

"To be fair, the weather hasn't helped at this European Championships - it has rained on six out of the eight days - but the gate for the Scots' tussle with Ireland wasn't great, considering that both of these teams will be competing at the World Cup in the Caribbean in just over six months' time. We recognise now that Ayr is not a haven of cricket and that if we had staged the fixture in Glasgow, we might have pulled a bigger crowd.

"But the culture of supporters who get behind Ireland is clearly more ingrained than it is in Scotland and I have no idea as to the solution. It's not as if this is an isolated occurrence - Craig Wright's players performed well in the C&G Trophy matches and yet there was hardly anybody there at the first three matches, so you have to wonder why so few Scots are cheering on their national side when they are ranked 12th in the world."

Holdsworth refused to be drawn on whether the problems associated with the European event would have repercussions for Cricket Scotland's hopes of bidding for the Twenty20 World Cup in 2011, but it appears nigh on inevitable that the ICC will not ignore the apparent widespread apathy which exists amongst Caledonian cricket followers, the majority of whom seem happier to back their clubs than their country.

"From my perspective, we have staged a hard-fought competition between several talented sides [with Ireland emerging as the victors of the main prize] and it is frustrating that so few Scots have come along to watch, but this event has yet to really grab the imagination," concluded Holdsworth. "But look on the bright side - we did have 500 police spectators at the Israeli matches and nobody could have envisaged that in advance!"

His tongue was lodged firmly in his cheek. However, one suspects that Cricket Scotland will hardly be rejoicing in the aftermath of an occasion which singularly failed to sparkle. As a microcosm of the travails which have afflicted the governing body since they gained official ODI status in January, we need only conclude that one nation has ample cause to celebrate at the climax of triumphing in all six different age European campaigns, from teenagers to seniors. Sadly, that nation is Ireland, which hints at the fact that whilst Scotland may figure amongst the best dozen in the globe at the moment, they have to up the ante, off the pitch, to stay in that position, let alone improve on it.