CRAIG Wright last night backed his young side to overcome the loss of Ruaidhri Smith by qualifying for the Under-19 World Cup.
Glamorgan all-rounder Smith cannot compete in next month's qualifying tournament – despite having already played for the Scots in last year's global event. Smith does not meet the ICC's development criteria for the qualifier but will be eligible to play if Scotland reach next year's tournament.
Wright, who yesterday named his 14-man squad, said: "Ruaidhri is a class player and anyone would miss him, but we have a really talented squad of players and we are capable of qualifying for the World Cup."
Scotland's task has been made harder by the ICC's decision to stage regional qualifying tournaments, meaning only one European country will qualify for next year's competition in Dubai. "Two European sides qualified via a global qualifier the last time," Wright added. "So it's ridiculous that only one will go through. We just have to get on with it and make sure it's us who qualify."
The squad features four players –Ross McLean, Nick Farrar, Andrew Umeed and Gavin Main – who were at the last World Cup in Australia.
All-rounder Safy Sharif will also return to Scotland action after a lengthy injury absence. He has been selected in a Development XI to take on Northants Academy in a three-day match at the County Ground.
Sharif claimed four wickets in the league on Saturday and scored a century in Clydesdale's Scottish Cup win over Ferguslie on Sunday.
Scotland U19 Squad (World Cup Qualifier 2-8 Aug) R McLean capt, N Alexander, A Baum, W Edwards, M English, N Farrar, C Gosain, L Hill, G Main, Z Muir, A Sabri, K Stirling, A Umeed, M Watt
Scotland Development Squad (v Northants Academy 23-25 July) P Sadler capt, R McLean, C Gosain, E Chalmers, H Gardiner, J Edwards, N Farrar, M English, K Stirling, A Baum, G Main, S Sharif
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article