Scotland's great leap forward (10 May 1999)

10 May 1999

Scotland's great leap forward

Mike Wilson

If there was a dog to accompany the man bidding the Scotland cricket team good luck as they left for the World Cup last week, it must have got lost in the shrubbery.

Maybe it wasn't much of a send-off because there wasn't much of a journey, all of a three-hour bus ride from Edinburgh to a training base in Durham. When the Scotland football team left for the Argentina World Cup in 1978, 25,000 people poured into Hampden to pay homage.

But don't read too much into the fanfare of indifference that sent the Scots on their way on Monday. Amid the modesty of the team's short hop from the headquarters of the Scottish Sports Council to Chester-le-Street is a tale of Scottish cricket having travelled a long way. Only last week, the first fixtures in a new national league (replacing east, west and county structures) were played. That the back pages of the nation's newspapers were not halted in their tracks should not diminish the scale of the achievement, nor the ferocity of the battles that were required to be won to effect the transformation.

Scotland are World Cup underdogs, but not makeweights. They qualified - with Bangladesh and Kenya - through the ICC (International Cricket Council) Trophy held in Malaysia two years ago. In January, they were buoyed by an ICC decision that allows Yorkshire's Gavin Hamilton to play for Scotland while not jeopardising his chances of becoming an England regular. Scotland are making no promises, but are happy to indulge the occasional 'You never know'.

The prize for them is increased credibility. What they most covet is being brought into the fold of 'one-day international' nations. Last summer, they did their prospects no harm by winning a series against Bangladesh. And Scotland play Bangladesh in Edinburgh on May 24. Three practice matches - against Durham (yesterday), Lancashire (tomorrow), and Yorkshire (Wednesday) - will quickly be followed by their first Group B match, against Australia.

Hey, who's worried? Australia on the 16th, followed by Pakistan on the 20th. After Bangladesh, it's the turn of West Indies on the 27th and then New Zealand on the 31st. They must be quaking in their shiny white boots; the Scots will be a little keyed up too.

"No matter who you are, the World Cup is a pinnacle to your career, the biggest stage, and for a young lad like me, 20 years old, to get a chance to play in it is just immense," said John Blain, a seam bowler with Northants and the youngest player to be capped by Scotland. "I might have played against some of these big players before, but the thing about the World Cup is they will just keep coming, one after the other. The way I look at it, it only takes one ball. I want to do myself justice and the team justice."

Batsman and captain George Salmond - like the rest of the team - has been visualising. "I am hoping the first ball is from somebody like Shane Warne. If it's from their opening bowlers, it means our batsmen have quickly departed the scene. It's probably going to be from a Glenn McGrath or a Shane Warne. If that doesn't get you fired up, nothing will. Our sports psychologist has got us into the nets trying to imagine it is a full house at Worcester, Glenn or Shane about to bowl." Has he ever woken up during the night in a cold sweat? "Yes, I have. Seventy-four not out."

The preparations have been those of well-organised and determined amateurs. Warm-weather training a few weeks ago in Sharjah, a six-week sabbatical last year; in between, Sunday sessions lasting a few hours. "It has not been ideal, but it has been as good as we can muster and we will not be using it as an excuse," adds Salmond. "Last summer, the Lottery funded about 10 of us to go full-time, which was good. But there is only so much you can do in six weeks. We played a series against Australia 'A' which we learned an awful lot from. But then from September right through to March we have been back to our day jobs, trying to fit in as much training during the week and then, on Sundays, trying to do as much as we can as a squad.

"Sharjah was great for team spirit. We all got on. I think we all realised the enormity of the task in front of us. If anyone is struggling, we will be there to pick them up. Since qualification two years ago, a lot of good things have been put in place. The matches have been of a higher standard and everybody has raised their game that two or three per cent which, at this level, can make all the difference."

Jim Love, director of cricket, is a man with a warmer heart than his tough exterior suggests. "Sharjah was good for fitness, now the preparations really begin. They will be our type of wickets and they ought to suit us more than anyone else, other than England, obviously. So we ought to use that as one of our strengths. It's going to be difficult to know what the targets are. You can add a few runs from the wicket and take a few away from the quality of the opposition.

"We have been trying to do as much for them behind the scenes and now it's up to them. The going-into-the-unknown aspect is exciting. We have nothing to lose. According to everyone, we are no-hopers, 500-1. We must go out there, we must enjoy the occasion and try not to freeze.

"Go out there and play the ball, not the man bowling. Bowl at the stumps, not at the batsman who is in. Then, who knows what might happen? Even if we have lost five games, I'd like to think there is a lot we can take away and learn for the future, because that is what this is about, the future. We are entering a fantasy world. I know in my own mind we are capable of causing an upset."

A ripple of controversy accompanied the recent announcement that Scotland will at last have an indoor cricket centre, but in collaboration with a private school. Love is not the sort to be diverted by the concerns of the chattering classes. He has worked hard at getting a proper youth development structure in place and an indoor centre is part of the jigsaw. So too has been the national league. If his co-visionary at the Scottish Cricket Union, general manager Alex Ritchie, had his way, a ground to call Scotland's own would soon be built. However, spare cash is something the SCU is not flush with, reflected in the lack of a main sponsor for the side in the World Cup.

"We have closed the gap between ourselves and the counties," adds Salmond. "We beat Worcestershire last year in the NatWest. We haven't been outclassed in our Benson & Hedges matches these last two years as we used to be so many times in the past. Without putting too much pressure on them, we have four top-class seamers - John Blain [Northants], Asim Butt [Heriot's], James Brinkley [Essex] and Gavin Hamilton [Yorkshire] and they have all had exposure to top-class cricket on a regular basis.

"The story of Scottish cricket in the past has been that we have competed for, say, a fifth of a game. Now, we are certainly able to compete for three-quarters of a game. Last year, we did well against Worcestershire, but there were two or three Benson & Hedges games where we let very good positions slip. Because we had been so rarely in these positions against teams of that calibre, we didn't know how to kill them off. But we are getting hungrier by the day."

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)