Photo Credit: Cricket Scotland
In the dry and sunny Caribbean island of Antigua, Scotland’s men’s training camp has started well, providing the opportunity for all the members of the squad to warm up for an important season ahead.
Based on the west side of the island, the squad have been training at the Sir Viv Richards Stadium in the north and yesterday (Wednesday) got the opportunity to try out the testing conditions in their first practise match at the Liberta Sports Club with the Leeward Island Hurricanes, a franchise team based in St Kitts and Nevis.
In a very relaxed game, McBride, who had just arrived after a 50 hour trip from Australia after winning his 1st grade competition with Redlands, was top scorer with 35 not out. Hamza Tahir was the pick of the Scots bowlers with 2 for 28 off 5 overs. The Scots reached 137 with Leeward hitting their target of 138 in the 30th over.
With several of the squads bowlers on back to bowling programmes after picking up various minor injuries, Interim Head of Performance Toby Bailey was pleased with the performance in the field commenting “Yesterday was a great opportunity to get used to different conditions that will be similar types of conditions to Zimbabwe.
“Although we didn’t bat how we wanted to in the warm conditions, the spinners and seamers adjusted to bowling different lengths really well.”
The squad will have another chance tomorrow (Friday) to get some more game time with a 50 over match lined up versus Windward Islands.
“We are looking forward to the challenge tomorrow and will be looking at some squad rotation with 13 players getting the opportunity to bat” said Bailey
Scotland men’s interim head coach Doug Watson will be flying out this weekend to join the squad and will have the opportunity to watch the players in various T20 matches versus the SKN Patriots, another franchise team based in Saint Kitts and Nevis.
The training camp will finish on 12th April with a number of the squad remaining to take part in the Cool and Smooth T20, which kicks off on the 13th.
