Cricket: Chalmers turns focus to Twenty20

Published on Thursday 9 April 2009 10:05

GRANGE new boy Stuart Chalmers has admitted his call-up to the preliminary Scotland cricket squad for this summer's ICC World Twenty20 came as a surprise – but he is hoping to grab the opportunity with both hands.

The 26-year-old has had an action-packed winter, signing for the 2008 Premier Division champions and being involved in extensive training with the Scotland Development squad. And the extra work he has been putting in with other national hopefuls over the last few months on his game and fitness has clearly impressed.

He and teenage prospect Matthew Parker (Arbroath) are the two players to be added to the core Scotland squad ahead of June's Twenty20 extravaganza in England. Scotland will play warm-up games against England on June 2 at Trent Bridge and The Netherlands at the Oval on June 3 before taking on New Zealand and South Africa in the group stages over the weekend of June 6 and 7 at the Oval.

The final squad of 15 for the tournament will be announced on May 5 and Chalmers, who captained Penicuik to the Scottish Cup final last season, said: "I was quite surprised when I got the call, in fact at first I thought it was one of my mates trying to wind me up. It will be hard to get into the final squad, but the call-up has given me a real boost. My aim for the season was to get myself into the Grange team and then put in some good performances so that I could push for Scotland Lions (A squad] selection, so to get this news is a bonus."

All-rounder Chalmers, who scored more than 1800 runs and took 107 wickets for Penicuik in 76 league matches, believes now is the right time in his career to be playing top-flight cricket each week and he cannot wait for the season to start.

"The work I have done this winter has really benefited me and kept me focused and I am really looking forward to playing alongside some quality players at Grange.

"I was doing a lot of training with new club mate Neil McCallum before he headed off with Scotland to South Africa and it is great to hear that he has been in such good form."

He has scored three centuries so far.

Scotland's preliminary ICC World Twenty20 squad: John Blain (Yorkshire), Richie Berrington (Greenock), Stuart Chalmers (Grange), Kyle Coetzer (Durham), Gordon Drummond (Carlton), Gordon Goudie (West of Scotland), Gavin Hamilton (East Brierly), Majid Haq (Clydesdale), Omer Hussain (Clydesdale), Moneeb Iqbal (West of Scotland), Dougie Lockhart (West of Scotland), Ross Lyons (Carlton), Neil McCallum (Grange), Callum MacLeod (Warwickshire), Dewald Nel (Greenock), Navdeep Poonia (Warwickshire), Glenn Rogers (Stenhousemuir), Qasim Sheikh (Clydesdale), Craig Wright (Greenock), Gregor Maiden (Grange), Matthew Parker (Arbroath), Colin Smith (Aberdeenshire), Simon Smith (Grange), Jan Stander (Stoneywood Dyce), Fraser Watts (Carlton), Sean Weeraratna (Greenock), Ryan Watson (Forfarshire).