Chris Sole hungry for Scotland return when coronavirus chaos is over

Australia-based bowler was raring to go after injury woes but Covid-19 means comeback is on hold

Chris Sole sends down a delivery during Scotland's famous one-day international win over England in June 2018. Picture: Rob Casey/SNS

There were probably a few of us, myself included, who marked the end of what was a rather taxing 2019 in many ways with the optimistic thought “2020 is going to be our year”.

Oh well, life doesn’t always respond to our click of the fingers optimism at times alas, and Scotland cricketer Chris Sole is viewing the current situation philosophically after what has already been a rollercoaster couple of years.

Two years ago the 26-year-old right-arm medium bowler was part of Scotland’s famous one-day international win over the soon to be world champions England on a heady June afternoon at The Grange in Edinburgh.

Having had a taste of the English county scene with Hampshire and lapping up the celebrations that day, all looked rosy. But the injury curse that is forever hanging over a sporting career struck, triple fold with a broken hand, alongside hamstring and ankle problems. Not a good combination for a bowler.

“It was tough but it’s kind of how it goes for a bowler, you bowl until you break, basically,” said Sole from Australia, where he is with his partner Siobhan.

He moved there 18 months ago, to Bendigo in Victoria, and has been getting back into his cricketing groove with local club Strathdale-Maristians, known as “The Suns”, to the point where he felt ready for a return to national service.

With a busy year looming, including a World Cricket League 2 tournament in Florida, summer matches at home to New Zealand and Australia, heading into the Twenty20 World Cup in Oz later this year, Sole was primed for action.

“I’d kept in touch with everyone and headed out for the training camp in La Manga, which was great. It was good to meet properly with the new coach Shane Burger as all my Scotland cricket had come under Grant Bradburn. It was really positive and I was feeling energised for the year ahead but, then, as we all know, this chaos hit us.

“I was actually lucky to get back here to Australia before everything was shutdown. So I’m basically here now, Siobhan’s family have an 11,000-acre farm so I’m helping out as much as I can with that.”

Sole comes from solid Scottish sporting stock. The son of 1990 rugby Grand Slam-winning captain David, his younger brother Tom has also represented Scotland at cricket, while sister Gemma is a netball internationalist.

The current pandemic has overshadowed what would have been a time of celebration for the Grand Slam team of 30 years ago but Sole jnr said: “It’s just how it is, a shame but something more important has happened and you just have to accept that. I was actually born four years after in 1994 but, I think like most people, I’ve been watching a bit of old stuff. I’ve actually really enjoyed watching highlights from the New Zealand tour that came just after the Grand Slam. There’s some great footage of that on YouTube.”

Sole opened the bowling against Eoin Morgan’s rampant England side, who would go on to beat Australia 5-0 in an ODI series before that famous World Cup win at Lord’s, with eventual matchwinner Safyaan Sharif almost two years ago at The Grange.

In perfect batting conditions, Scotland had racked up a record 371 for five to defend in front of 4,000 enthralled fans in sun-kissed Stockbridge.

Jonny Bairstow cut loose with a century but the Scots dug in and bowled the English out for 365 to spark wild scenes of jubilation only matched in Scottish cricket history by Freuchie’s iconic Village Cup win at Lord’s in 1985.

“It was such a special day,” recalled Sole. “I remember towards the end I was pretty much fielding on the boundary. We still had two wickets to take and, although we had a sniff, England were still looking good for the win. But there were these kids on ball boy duty behind the boundary who kept saying ‘we’re going to win this’ and then ‘this is definitely going to be a wicket’ and it was!

“All of a sudden we just needed one more and, again, the kid behind me called it and said ‘this is a wicket’. And it was. The rest is a bit of a blur.”

That Sharif yorker on England tailender Mark Wood sealed the deal and, while cricket and life is now facing a period of stasis, looking back on occasions like that makes Sole even more motivated to be involved with a thistle on his chest again when things resume.

“Since I moved out to Australia I didn’t think it was something that could be possible [being in the Scotland mix], but because Shane and [captain] Kyle [Coetzer] were keen to try and make things workable going forward I would have been daft not to have another crack with my country.”

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