Bright young players are lighting the way for Scottish cricket

Senior Sports Writer

Thursday 26 July 2012

For many years after the 1999 Cricket World Cup I used to enjoy teasing English friends who had an interest in the sport by asking them to identify the British batsman who scored most runs at that tournament.

Richie Berrington is a fine example of how Scottish cricketing talent has flourished. Picture: SNS

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Kevin Ferrie

The answer is Scotland's Gavin Hamilton, but enough people know it now that it no longer counts as a decent quiz question.

However, another Scot has now found an even more spectacular way of ensuring that his name will forever be in the sport's record books. Richie Berrington this week became not only the first British batsman to score a century in a T20 international match, but the first from an associate nation to do so.

It was not only reaching three figures but the way in which he did it that is worthy of recognition, since it set up Scotland's first win against a Test playing nation in any senior version of the sport. Furthermore, they were up against a Bangladesh side that had just thrashed Ireland 3-0 on their last tour so could not be accused of being short of practice or form and, according to some reports, those wins had put them fourth in the T20 World Rankings.Yet in the space of 55 balls, 10 of which went for 4s and four more for 6s, Berrington took Wednesday's match beyond them, setting up a 34-run win which offered further evidence that coach Peter Steindl's young side is growing in stature at the highest level.It was two years ago that the first real indication of Berrington's potential was demonstrated – in what was another incredible win over opposition from the sub-continent. Rarely have I enjoyed any performance by a Scottish international team in any sport more than that afternoon at Titwood, after an India A team – sprinkled with players who were making names for themselves in the IPL – had posted a formidable total of 276 then reduced Scotland to 64 for seven in pursuit.The way that Berrington and Moneeb Iqbal then set about their apparently hopeless task was a joy to behold, the then 23-year-old leading the way in their 174-run partnership, his effort relatively staid by comparison with this week's as he registered 106 off 115 balls.That was an important performance in terms of generating belief and if the Scots have not exactly leapt on from that point this defeat of Bangladesh represents another major step in the right direction.When I interviewed Steindl recently, he explained the challenge he was setting his team. "I believe we're at the stage now where we've got to take that step across the line from being a development team to a team that's actually performing," said the Scotland coach. "We're right at the line where we've now got to be harder on ourselves."Yet the scale of the task facing them was underlined that day as we met at The Grange where a corner of the ground was already under water, with worse to come a few days later when the Water of Leith burst its banks.He had, that morning, to call off a planned session with one of his players and this miserably wet summer has led countless matches to be rained off, restricting the amount of match practice available to the top players.Far from carping, then, as some will always do, Steindl, his management team and the group of bright young things they are developing, deserve huge credit for the way they bounced back from Sunday's hefty CB40 defeat at the hands of Nottinghamshire, to lift themselves for this much more important fixture.Steindl took over a team in decline four years ago, the state of the sport in this country at that time having led Ian Stanger, a long-standing member of the national squad, to speak out in highly critical terms in Herald Sport about the way it was being run.Slowly but surely the right players have been identified and nurtured and it is quite clear that a system is in place that allows promising youngsters to emerge and then flourish.The real frustration, however, is that, following the weather-enforced abandonment of next month's scheduled meeting with England, there are now no more international fixtures for the national team until next year.Having also spoken recently with the new president of the ICC, I detected a will among the powers that be to address properly the issue of broadening interest in the sport. That means helping raise the standards of associate nations such as Scotland.The ICC recently put its money where its mouth is as far as that is concerned by providing substantial additional funding that Steindl intends to use to take the squad on tours and ensure that they make up for what is normally a shortfall of cricket compared with the leading nations. That is only exacerbated during a summer like this.In doing so, he can remain confident that this victory over Bangladesh will prove to be a worthwhile exercise.

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Bright young players are lighting the way for Scottish cricket

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