How Scotland women came together to script history
Speaking about the coaching staff, Strachan praised the coaching trio, who helped Scotland achieve this success. “Our head coach is Craig Wallace who has represented Scotland himself as a cricketer. and he has an incredible amount of experience himself. I think he’s brought these plays together with a sense of enjoyment of cricket as well as learning as they go along. And the assistant coaches are Joe Kinghorn-Gray, who is based in Edinburgh, and Leigh Kasparek, who have brought different skills to the table. It has allowed our players to find their best game as and when they need it.”
When not playing for Scotland, most of the national players have contracts in the England domestic system as they play in the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy and Charlotte Edwards Cup. It does help in gaining experience and getting the opportunity to play in one of the professional leagues in women’s cricket, but at the same time, it means the Scotland squad is scattered in various camps over the year. This time around the situation was a little bit different.
“We knew that if each one of us put in the performance that we know we can, we would get over the line. There’s a massive trust and camaraderie and a shared passion. We’re a small country but we’re all very passionately Scottish. This time we had some opportunity to be together before the tournament and that made a massive difference because we were scattered all over the place. But, the girls are gaining experiences that they couldn’t at this time in Scotland. And so they bring those experiences back to the group and they share the benefits of those with the group and the group grows together,” Strachan explained.
At the end of the day, from the bigger perspective, an associate nation making it to the World Cup is a huge deal. Not just for Scotland, but for other associate nations as well. In Rugby-mad Scotland, this achievement could change the way women’s cricket is viewed. “I think, you can’t underestimate how massive it is for Scottish women’s cricket to do this because in Scotland, people who don’t follow cricket would perhaps not understand the qualification process. And the cricket World Cup is such a small World Cup with only 10 teams.
“It is hard to break into that with the funding an associate nation has. To get there allows us to show how far we’ve come and to show the rest of Scotland and the rest of the world how hard these players and coaches have worked. Also what a great opportunity it is for the ones coming after them to see that you can actually be on the world stage. And for all the other associate nations, it gives them hope that they might be in that position one day too,” Strachan underlined the impact of this qualification.
After confirming their ticket to Bangladesh for the World Cup in Bangladesh, Scotland will face Sri Lanka in the final of the World Cup qualifier today. The result of the final will determine if Scotland will be in Group A or B at the marquee tournament.
However, Strachan is not overtly worried about the result of the final. “I think for us, that whichever group we’re put in, we will do our best to show all of those teams in that group how good we are. We relish the challenge and this is an opportunity, that Scotland women’s cricket has never had before and we are looking forward to it. Whichever teams we play, we will aim to gain such amazing experiences and learning. I think that our team is only going to get better,” she signed off.