As Scottish cricket celebrated it’s Wembley 1967 moment with a victory over world number one ranked England man-of-the-match Calum MacLeod hailed his team’s victory as an overdue reward for a transformation in attitudes.
In front of a capacity 5000 crowd Scotland’s breathtaking tally of 371 for five off their 50 overs had been built around MacLeod’s brilliant 140 not out, his seventh One Day International century and by far the best taking into account the quality of the opposition.
However, MacLeod was quick to offer credit to coach Grant Bradburn and captain Kyle Coetzer for the leadership they have offered in freeing up the players to perform as they did in securing a six run win when Safyaan Sharid trapped England’s last man Mark Wood LBW off the penultimate ball of the penultimate over.
“This win has been coming for a couple of years since Grant and Kyle took over and pushed the aggressive cricket you saw,” said the 29-year-old from Uddingston.
“We showed we were capable of this last year against Sri Lanka and then to take the step up to beat a full England side, no 1 ranked in the world, is a massive statement from Scottish cricket.”
It was the most of impressive of responses to the savage blow dealt to Scotland earlier this year when they played fine cricket throughout the World Cup qualifying competition but controversially missed out on making it to the finals as a result of poor decisions by officials, a lack of technological support by the International Cricket Council (ICC), the competition’s organisers and appalling luck when their decisive match against the West Indies was rained off with the match in the balance.
That clearly still hurts, but results like yesterday’s can only help their cause in the longer term.
“We want more games. That is the bigger shop window rather than personal side of it,” said MacLeod.
“If ICC and other international teams look at this game they will see we are not an add on. This should be a catalyst for more games. Anyone here or watching could see the energy from the crowd and what passion there is for cricket up here.
“As a Scotland team we have looked at the way Afghanistan and Ireland have progressed and that has been on the back of beating full member teams. Our chances at World Cups will be a bit more limited now but if we can built teams when they come up then that is how we sit up and be counted.
“This does not take away what happened in Zimbabwe and everyone’s feelings about the ten team World Cup but this was a special day.
“Performances like this can only push our case. These are the opportunities we have to take as a Scottish team.”
He said they had drawn additional inspiration from the involvement in their camp ahead of the match of Duncan Hodge, hero of the Scotland rugby team’s Calcutta Cup win in 2000 when he scored all 19 of his side’s win who is also a fine cricketer.
“It is up to us to build on it. Hodgey said for too long Scottish sport has been about close misses and this could have been one of those days. Something as a cricket team we have really looked at last 18 months is taking those key moments in games and not being plucky Scottish losers. We want to be brave enough to walk through the door and win games.”
As a native Irishman Eoin Morgan, the captain of the beaten side, was meanwhile well placed to assess what the result meant for the home team and acknowledged that the better side had won on the day.
“We didn’t play anywhere near to our best,” said skipper Eoin Morgan. “We were miles off where we expect to be and didn’t do enough to win.
“We might have scraped past them and won, but there were still quite a few mistakes made that we need to rectify and learn from ahead of the Australia series.
“It is huge for Scotland. I’m not hugely disappointed about it because it was a good competitive game and that is all we could have asked for.”
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