Cricket: Irish and Dutch thrive while Scots are perennial whipping boys

O NE Saltires win from seven matches. It has been yet another unequivocally dismal CB40 campaign. The spin put on last week’s loss to the Hampshire Royals at the Aegean Bowl was that it was “an improvement on the earlier limp showing against Durham” but a scoreboard showing Hants at 200 for 3 in the 33rd over doesn’t signify much improvement to this correspondent.

Earlier, the batting had only been bailed out from a parlous 97 for 5 by an 80-run stand for the sixth wicket between Preston Mommsen and Majid Haq.

There are a further five CB40 ties still to be contested in July and August – against Somerset twice, Notts, the Welsh Dragons, and the Durham Dynamos. But, even at this stage, it begs the question – is there any point in participation beyond this year in a tournament where we’ve become the perennial whipping boys? What is the potential development value in that?

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

It’s instructive to look at what our fellow Associate Member countries, with whom we seek parity, are doing. The Irish have eschewed the CB40 and their top team will spend their summer playing ODIs and T20 internationals against Australia, England, India, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. For most of August, they will play a series of matches in all forms against South Africa A to complement their July four-day ICC Intercontinental Cup joust with the Afghans.

It’s noteworthy that, while, collectively and individually, Scots-reared cricketers are toiling, on Sunday in the CB40 competition, and at the home of cricket itself two Irish-born and bred batsmen propelled Middlesex to their highest-ever total in one-day cricket. They were the unlikely scintillating strokemaker Paul Stirling and Eoin Morgan, who is eager to reassert his England claims.

Morgan thrashed 116 from just 54 balls and Stirling 119 off 99 as a short Lord’s boundary on the Tavern side and a Lancs attack containing three left-arm spinners invited a spectator-threatening fusillade of sixes.

And, while Scotland languish in the nether regions of Group B, our historic rivals the Netherlands are on CB40 fire, forging a lead at the top of Group A, and looking down on Middlesex, Gloucs, Worcs, Lancs, Essex and Leics, having won five of seven completed matches. It’s also worth noting that the Dutch are managed by Peter Drinnen, the Saltires coach until ousted, allegedly by player power.

Queenslander Drinnen has boosted his squad with three Australians who qualify for the Dutch and are hungry to prove themselves. All three made their mark last week, as Netherlands, inserted by Leicestershire at Grace Road, posted their best-ever score against County opposition with 304 for 3. Ex-Western Warriors batsman Michael Swart, who has a Dutch father, put his disciplinary problems behind him to record a maiden one-day century off just 96 balls, while ex-Greenock, Saltires and Southern Redbacks all-rounder Cameron Borgas smacked an unbeaten 61 from just 33 balls.

The third of the Aussie trio, South Australia’s Tom Cooper, whose mother is from Dutch New Guinea and who was pro at Forfarshire in 2008, where he averaged 99, weighed in with a quickfire 68.

We may not wish to pursue the Dutch granny route but the Irish do seem to be following an eminently more enlightened playing template than subjecting themselves to an interminable sequence of pointlessly demoralising CB40 county humiliations.

Related topics: