Ex-Scotland captain turned coach Gordon Drummond sets World Cup target

The man from Meigle has represented Scotland at a World Cup, captained the team, been inducted into the Cricket Scotland Hall of Fame, coached the men’s under-19s at a World Cup, assisted with the men’s and women’s senior teams in qualifying tournaments and, until this appointment, was operating as the governing body's Head of Performance Pathways. Oh, and his sister is Annette, another Scottish cricketing all-rounder in terms of the number of different roles she’s held over the years.

For Drummond, the chance to work again with new men’s head coach Owen Dawkins represents yet another entry onto an already stacked CV and, like his former team-mate, he hopes those varied experiences will serve him well.

"It’s certainly big shoes to fill in terms of following Wrighty,” he says. “It's a bit of a full circle for me, going from being a club player involved in the game at different levels and doing a lot of coaching work within various different groups.

“I ran cricket for Edinburgh Council initially then obviously became a Scotland player and got the opportunity to become captain. I've cut my teeth in terms of coaching. Maybe not at that top level all the time, where people see it, but I've certainly earned the badges through working at different levels, whether it be in primary schools, club environments, performance environments, pathway environments and youth World Cups.

“I think that breadth of experience has certainly helped me to become a better coach. And until recently I've been leading the pathway and trying to develop the next level of cricketers. But when this opportunity came up, I thought that now was the time to step into that field again. I'm excited to be able to work with Dawks to hopefully bring some success to this group.”

The pain of the men’s team not qualifying for the T20 World Cup will become more acute when it gets underway at the start of February but Drummond confirms that making sure Scotland are represented at future tournaments – both in the T20 formate but also the one-day game – will be a key driver for he and Dawkins.

“That has to be the focus for the group, qualification for World Cups,” adds the 45-year-old. “That's a must and that's what we'll live and die on, I guess. I can see there's still a bit of disappointment in some of the guys when you talk to them about what happened in the summer [in the unsuccessful qualifying campaign].

“We've got to realise as a group that there are teams below us that will be looking to challenge all the time and push us in the way that we want to push the teams that are sitting above us. With the expansion of the World Cups, everybody now sees that as an opportunity. So they are definitely going to be looking to see us as a scalp and we've got to make sure that we are well prepared for those kinds of environments.

"It's a constant battle at all levels. There's never any meaningless cricket for Scotland so the players have got to get their head around that and know that every game is really, really vital and qualification for the next World Cup is so important.”

Scottish cricket’s reputation has taken a bit of a battering in recent years due to off-field turbulence but Drummond reveals it has not done any negligible damage to the ongoing effort to unearth the next generation of talent.

"I think there's always that enthusiasm for the sport,” he confirms, as he moves on from the pathways role he’s held since 2018. “We've got diversity within the sport too, so that helps.

“We’re continually trying to develop that quality, too. What Credit Scotland's done over a period of time since Covid has got back to a staffing level that they can continue to develop the game and making sure that everybody's got opportunity to play it. From that perspective, I think the game is still as healthy as ever.”