Playing with Teeth

Jake Perry

Description

On the afternoon of 10 June 2018, Edinburgh became the centre of the cricketing world. Scotland's first-ever win over England not only proved the team's ability to go toe-to-toe with the best players on the planet, it also completed one of the most remarkable turnarounds in the history of Scottish sport. In a country known more for its hard luck stories than its triumphs, the victory was about more than a single result: it showed that Scotland's cricketers had discovered what it took to win. Playing with Teeth follows their journey to get there. Beginning with the disastrous campaign at the qualifier for the 2014 World T20, the book describes the cultural changes that unlocked the team's potential and enabled them to move on from the narrative of glorious failure that was so often the story of the past. Based on extended interviews with those at the heart of the action, Playing with Teeth records a unique time in the history of Scottish cricket while also providing a blueprint from which the whole of Scottish sport can learn.

Sujets

• Críquet
• Escocia
• Scotland
• Cricket

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 20 juin 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781801502801
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2022
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Jake Perry and Gary Heatly, 2022
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Print ISBN 9781801501217
eBook ISBN 9781801502801
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword by Peter Miller
Sliding Doors
PART ONE: TURNING THE TIDE
1. Annus Horribilis - ICC World T20 Qualifier, 15-30 November 2013
2. A New Direction - ICC World Cup Qualifier, 13 January-1 February 2014
3. Raising the Bar - ICC World Cup, 14 February-29 March 2015
4. Snakes and Ladders - ICC World T20, 8 March-3 April 2016
PART TWO: THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD
5. Decision in Dundee - Desert T20 Challenge, 14- 20 January 2017
6. A Major Scalp - Scotland v Sri Lanka, 21 May 2017
7. Hunger Games - ICC World Cup Qualifier, 4-25 March 2018
8. The Flowering of Scotland - Scotland v England, 10 June 2018
PART THREE: THE HISTORY MEN
9. Rise and Stall - ICC Men s T20 World Cup Qualifier, 18 October-2 November 2019
10. Bold and Brave - ICC Men s T20 World Cup, 17 October-14 November 2021
Photos
In Memory of Con de Lange 11 February 1981-18 April 2019
Mentor, leader, champion and, above all, friend
Acknowledgements
Playing with Teeth could not have been written without the generous help and support of a great many people. We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to everyone at Cricket Scotland. The assistance we were given in bringing this project to life was invaluable. Thank you all. We hope that the result does some justice to your tireless work to grow the game of cricket in Scotland.
Our grateful thanks go to Jane Camillin for giving us the chance to tell this story, Duncan Olner of Olner Design for his superb artwork, and Scott Reeves for all his advice and encouragement.
Thank you, too, to Peter Miller for his kindness, support and excellent foreword, and to all those that have helped us along the way, including Qasim Sheikh, Andrew Brock, Jigar Mehta, Rosy Ryan, Lizzie Sleet and Adriana Wright.
Finally, we thank the players, coaches, administrators and observers past and present who offered us their time, support and expertise so willingly: Richie Berrington, Grant Bradburn, Tony Brian, Shane Burger, Malcolm Cannon, Kyle Coetzer MBE, Paul Collingwood MBE, Matthew Cross, Ally Evans, Ben Fox, Chris Greaves, Duncan Hodge, Matt Machan, Gus Mackay, Calum MacLeod, Preston Mommsen, George Munsey, Mark Nicholas, George Salmond, Safyaan Sharif, Andy Tennant, Jonathan Trott, Mark Watt and Craig Wright.
The vast majority of the interviews included were conducted specifically for this book, although we have also drawn on our respective archives of contemporary features, reports and podcast pieces. The sources for any other quotes are given in the text.
Foreword by Peter Miller
THERE IS a lot to enjoy about the way the current Scotland team play their cricket. There is a fearlessness to their approach which defies the harsh reality of what it means to be a cricketer from an Associate nation. The perils are very real and almost constant. England or Australia can lose an international match and there will no doubt be recriminations - the players involved may be dropped from the team, coaches may be moved on - but there is no existential crisis. This is not true for the Associate nations: every game, every over, every ball can be career-defining and potentially career-ending.
If Scotland miss out on a World Cup and the financial windfall that this gives their board, there is a chance that the journey comes to an end. As Matt Machan says in this excellent book on the journey of this team, Scotland needed to win every game at the 2014 World Cup Qualifier, and if they did then people got to keep their jobs .
It is easy to view cricket through a prism of selfinterest - that is certainly what a lot of administrators have done over the years - but as cricket fans we must give attention to the stories of these players. Sport is as much about the unfancied team winning as it is about the best ones performing, and almost all of the great stories from any global event are from the players who have finally been given the spotlight that their talent deserves.
It has been a long journey for this current group of Scotland players but there has been more success than failure in the last few years, not least their stunning win over England in 2018 when Calum MacLeod made an unforgettable 140 not out to set up victory against the best team in the world. A win that showed this team has class and character.
But perhaps more remarkable than that win over England, a team who would go on and win the 50-over World Cup the following year, is the fact that Scotland have played just 16 ODI matches since that famous victory, with only two of those against ICC Full Member nations. By comparison, India played 57 ODIs in that same period.
While the Covid-19 pandemic played a large part in this paltry number of fixtures, Full Member nations had the resources to continue in bio-secure bubbles. Associate teams did not. A paucity of fixtures is just one of the many ways that cricket fails to support the growth of the game.
Things have undoubtedly improved over the last ten years, and this criticism needs to be tempered by the fact that the pandemic made travel so difficult, but there always seems to be one step forward and two steps back.
The ODI Super League was created with the 12 Full Members and the winner of the 2015-2017 World Cricket League. This meant that the Netherlands would be getting fixtures against big teams. This is undoubtedly a good thing, but it is still something of a half measure. The Netherlands will have three-match series against England and the West Indies, but the games against Pakistan have been postponed with no new date proposed for them to take place and there were never plans for them to play some of the other teams in the Super League. Despite being in the top tier of ODI cricket there will be no matches against India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Australia as well as, potentially, Pakistan.
To top this off, the pandemic is already being touted as a reason to do away with this concept altogether. Scotland may never get this opportunity, and even one this limited would be huge for them.
The World Cricket League (50-over) and Intercontinental Cup (four-day) competitions have been two of the great advancements of the last decade. The former has been replaced by Cricket World Cup League 2, but the Intercontinental Cup has been binned, and no plan has been made public on a possible replacement.
Perhaps the removal of the Intercontinental Cup makes sense: after all, the ICC has now decoupled Test cricket from Full Membership. The Netherlands have already stated that they are not interested in becoming a Test-playing nation if they were elevated to Full Member status and they may well not be the only Associate board to make this call in the future. Certainly, Cricket Scotland s chair, Tony Brian, has praised the doing away with the necessity for multiday cricket as part of becoming a Full Member.
But ultimately the issue here is one of meritocracy, something that the best sport should always be about. For one group of teams every result matters: livelihoods for the players and those supporting the team depend on it. But once the golden fleece of Full Member status has been obtained, there is no way for you to be demoted: winning and losing is still important, of course, but it is not the same zero-sum game.
During the 2021 T20 World Cup we saw a Scotland team that started brilliantly then faded, but there were clear signs of talent and the potential for better results going forward. Their win over Bangladesh on the opening day of the tournament set up their qualification for the Super 12 as they made it out of round one undefeated. The comeback that day, led by Chris Greaves, will live long in the memory.
While the results that followed were disappointing, not least the defeat to Namibia, there was enough there to be hopeful for the future, but only if Scotland are given the chance to play cricket. You cannot improve as a side while watching from the sidelines.
And this brings us back to this likeable Scotland team and how they go about their cricket. While some of those Super 12 losses were chastening, the whole group looked on them as a learning experience. They were playing top opposition in T20 for the first time since 2018 and this was the chance to see where they were. As the star of that win over Bangladesh says in this book, I m Chris Greaves, I m not Rashid Khan: you ve always got to remember who you are.
Making the Super 12 at the 2021 T20 World Cup can be the base camp for Scotland to move forward. The cricket world, however, fans and administrators, need to play their part in helping them to improve.
Peter Miller is the co-author of Second XI: Cricket In Its Outposts and 28 Days Data: England s Troubled Relationship With One-Day Cricket .
Introduction
Sliding Doors
He s done it! Oh, a great goal! Oh, superb!
ASK A Scot of a certain age to share their sweetest sporting memory, and chances are they wi