Scotland team celebrate after winning a match during the ICC Men's T20 World Cup match between West Indies and Scotland at Bellerive Oval on October 17, 2022 in Hobart, Australia - Photo: Izhar Khan
The cruel realities of T20 cricket were on full display for Scotland in its Group B defeat to Ireland in Hobart on Wednesday.
Giant killers in its opening match against the West Indies, ‘The Saltires’ looked set for repeat fortunes with the score 4/61 at the halfway mark of the Irish chase.
That was until a match winning 119 run stand from inspired pair, Curtis Campher (72 from 32) and George Dockrell (39 from 27) carried Ireland over the line of 5/176 set by Richie Berrington’s men.
Instead of sitting a game clear, Scotland now enters its Friday meeting with Zimbabwe on equal points with each member of the group.
Though it might be easy to dwell on the performance, the feeling within the squad remains upbeat.
Speaking with media after the match, resolute captain Berrington was quick to embrace the task at hand.
“We have to move on from this game, learn what we can from it,” he said.
“We know in these group scenarios it’s never straight forward. We’ll reflect well on this and come back strong on Friday.
“There’ll certainly be a couple of areas we’ll look at, to see where we didn’t execute as well as we can.
“I think you have to give credit to the way that they played. They made it really hard for the guys to bowl at them.
“Our focus is very much on moving on from here and putting in a strong performance on Friday.”
There is also clear evidence of a buy in to this positive way of thinking by Scotland’s players.
Despite being taken for 12 runs in what turned out to be the penultimate over of the contest, pace bowler Safyaan Sharif remains confident the side can turn things around against ‘The Chevrons.’
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Unencumbered by the bowling unit’s inability to take a breakthrough wicket, the 31 year old will not be dwelling on the result.
“You can always look back at the game and have a lot of theories,” Sharif told the media.
“This is part of T20 cricket. Anything can happen within the one over and that’s exactly what happened.
“Nothing changes, the process stays the same. Trust the process and we’re looking forward to Friday’s game and we know how important it’s going to be.
“This means nothing. Our first game, we won the game, it didn’t mean anything until we did our job. Our job on Friday is to get that win and qualify for a World Cup.”
Such powerful sentiment from the players has been echoed by coach Shane Burger.
To him, getting caught up in the past is not a fruitful pursuit. The 11 players that walk out against Zimbabwe will know that they cannot turn back time.
To this end, their focus will be solely on the job they are faced with – win and in.
“From a mentality point of view, from a pressure point of view, it’s going to be nothing that we haven’t experienced before,” he relayed to the media on Thursday.
“We know they’re going to arrive with us, up their game as we’re going to have to and put in their best performance of the three games.
“One thing you can’t do is go back and change what has happened. All you can do is learn from it and move forward.”
Scotland returns to action at 7pm AEDT on Friday 21 October for a must-win clash with Zimbabwe For a full fixture, click here.
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