An impartial preview...

Obviously we Scots don’t care about this fixture, unless we win, in which case you English won’t hear the end of it...

Mighty Scotland, fresh from the ICC Intercontinental Cup, are (as we speak) girding themselves up to unleash an unstoppable barrage of cricketing talent on the complacent English team as it strays across the Northern Marches like the Ninth Legion before them (which never came back, incidentally).

Scotland will be training and exercising, as the English are stuck on their coach. The Scots team will be having a proper dinner the night before, made from food that’s been running around and about the place, as the English pick at their egg and cress sandwiches and leave the crusts. On the day of the match, Scotland will be eating ‘Tablet’, which is full of energy and is mostly made out of sugar, which rots your teeth by the way.

I still have my badge, somewhere, identifying me as the Scotland supporter at the 1999 World Cup. That was the World Cup where Gavin Hamilton was officially the best all-rounder in the competition and, oh look! He’s playing in this match. My badge has a proper flag on it, with blue to symbolise the sea, which surrounds our country on its three best sides, and white, symbolising us beating you. We also have the Royal flag of Scotland, the Lion Rampant, which (because James VI of Scotland became James I of England) symbolises us ruling you and then beating you and Scotland being very much the senior partner in Great Britain. The English flag is a bit boring, to be fair. That’s why Her Majesty, our monarch, much prefers living in Scotland.

Scots cricket is hardly ever on television (which we invented) instead of football (which we invented) on grass lawns (which we invented) in the outdoors (which we invented), so you really have to go down to the match. From most of Scotland, Edinburgh is down. That’s the only way with Scottish cricket – you have to be there. It’s not just for the atmosphere of patient, simmering national pride. It’s mainly because, if you listen to Scotland vs England on the radio at home, you usually spend the last ten overs pulling up the floorboards and eating the nails.

[Editor – could you please just tell us about their team?]

Gavin Hamilton is Scotland’s best one-day player ever. At his best, that is. Hamilton averages above 35 in ODIs with one century to his name. He’s been playing since 1999, dominated the World Cup and then ‘blew up a bit’ (especially his bowling), but appears to be back in form again with the bat. He’s capable of a big display.

Ryan Watson was born in Zimbabwe. He’s a good run-maker and has reasonably good wicket-taking abilities. His bowling economy rate is a little high, so England might target him, but he’s seen that before and come through on top. He’s pretty handy with the bat (80 against Pakistan and a century against Canada), scored 154 against Holland in the longer form of the game and was part of Scotland’s all-time record 4th wicket partnership of 240.

Colin Smith, Scotland’s 35 year old wicket keeper, has had plenty of experience playing for Scotland plus an additional six years playing in Australia. The team is a blend of long time players and inexperienced newcomers. Smith brings an air of permanency to stabilise the side.

Fraser Watts, ex-captain, once made 93 against Bermuda. His strike rate and average are somewhat average, but he can kill loose deliveries.

Neil McCallum, hit 100 off 92 balls against Ireland and 68 against Pakistan, (with Ryan Watson) was part of the record stand of 240 runs for the 4th wicket against The Netherlands, in which he scored a glorious 181.

John ‘Haggis’ Blain, a solid performer with bat and ball, the most experienced player and a good bowler, never lets the side down, good at bringing pressure to bear on the opposition, can bowl economy when he wants to, but prefers to open the bowling and hunt for wickets.

Gordon Drummond, an all-rounder with five matches under his belt. Nothing outstanding so far, but there’s time.

Qasim Sheikh, a batsman who gets invited to ICC training camps, hit 80 not out against Denmark in a rain affected match and could prop up the middle order.

Craig Wright, a middle order batsman with a good strike rate and who can be a handful in the closing overs. He hasn’t exactly fulfilled his potential over the years, so he’s better than his stats, if you see what I mean.

Ross Lyons, a slow left arm bowler, representing Scotland’s continuing search for a Vettori or a Panesar clone to win matches on slow pitches.

Richard Berrington, born in South Africa, was named by the ICC as ‘one of Europe’s finest talents’ in their 14 man European Cricket Academy squad. He was born in South Africa, but he’s Scotland’s now and they’re not having him back.

Dewald ‘JD’ Nel was born in South Africa and bowls medium paced late out-swing (which takes more wickets in cricket than any other delivery) from a decent line and length. He then wastes a ball per over by straying too wide. Easy to set a field to, therefore a consistent containment option, but he’s mainly there to get early wickets.

Nowadays, the 3rd generation agricultural communities of the Transvaal are proving to be an excellent source of home-grown Scottish talent and when these lads return to our granite shores, proper shores, drawn back to the spiritual home of engineering, modern medicine, iron ships, real deer as tall as a man, cold water in the morning, deer hounds as tall as a man, actual mountains, none of your hills, and chilblains that we’re too tough to tell you about, they seem to settle in and take it quite well.

They find pride and honour playing for Scotland, a side that has never been beaten by Australia in a Test Match (England has lost cricket matches to Ireland, Wales in ODIs and Holland in a one-off Test, by the way) although Scotland did lose to the Welsh once, but that was in battle and they had longbows, which is tantamount to cheating.

[Editor – could we talk about the English team now please?]

Ah, okay. So it’s them you want to know about? We always talk about them, don’t we? It’s always about them.

The day before the match, the Sassenachs will be spilling out of their squalid little tenements and pungent council estates in England, with its record prison population, and heading up to Scotland to infest one of our historic and luxuriously appointed Edinburgh hotels. They’ll probably want soapy baths and room service, but we’ll be seeing the colour of their money before they get it.

[Editor – get on with it]

The England team will be drawn from a larger squad, some blokes called:

Tim Ambrose, James Anderson, Ian Bell, Ravi Bopara, Tim Bresnan, Stuart Broad, Michael Carberry, Paul Collingwood, Alastair Cook, Andrew Flintoff, Simon Jones, Ed Joyce, Robert Key, Sajid Mahmood, Dimitri Mascarenhas, Phil Mustard, Graham Onions, Monty Panesar, Samit Patel, Kevin Pietersen, Liam Plunkett, Matt Prior, Owais Shah, Ryan Sidebottom, Andrew Strauss, Graeme Swann, James Tredwell, Chris Tremlett and Luke Wright.

Not too much to worry about there then. You can probably find them somewhere on Google, if you’re interested.

Oh, and be warned: Scots were using 3lb cricket bats before anyone. There’s a player up here who has a theory that if you drink a couple of double whiskys before you go out to bat it makes your pupils dilate and you can see the ball like a football, although that didn’t stop me bowling him with a full toss.

Let’s face it, the people of Scotland are much too humble to say it out loud, but there’s always that feeling we make a better standard of human being up here and, in a certain moral sense, we deserve to beat the English at all the sports there are, including tennis and that thing with sliding rocks along the ice. After all, we won all of your wars for you, because you lacked the muscle, and I think you might still owe us some money for that little one down in Argentina a couple of centuries ago that no one ever talks about.

[Editor – I think I’ll just wrap this thing up by telling the readers that England are very likely to win. In Scotland’s defence, they have a team with seven middle order batsmen and three tail enders.  Do you still want your name under it?]

Yes. I hate you.

Adam Corres
Kincardineshire