We always do our homework and go 110% into a game: Watt

While the whole world is turning a blind corner, cricket in the associate country has grown leaps and bounds to a level where the United States of America besting Pakistan seems just about normal. Scotland, the other night, ran the defending champions England ragged before rain put a premature end to the encounter. 

Richie Berrington’s side also finished well in their previous clash against Namibia, which now puts them in a very good position to make it through to the next stage from Group B after England’s loss at the hands of Australia. Ahead of their clash against Oman, lead spinner Mark Watt insisted that the Europeans always do their homework, and go well-prepared for any clash, irrespective of the opponents. 

“Yeah, I mean, it's a bit of a cliche but we take every game the exact same way. If it's England, Oman, or Namibia, we do our homework and just go into it 110%. They're a really dangerous side. We know what they're capable of. Obviously, we've had a lot of meetings with them before. We know their strengths and weaknesses, so we're definitely going to try and exploit the weaknesses and then take them the same as every other team in the tournament,” Watt said in the pre-match press conference. 

One factor that has dominated the encounters in the Caribbean here is the breeze. Even the encounter between Australia and England was won and lost by which team bowled well in the conditions, perfecting both the wind factor and the small boundary ends. 

“Yeah, it's the first thing we looked at today when we came out of the changing room, was how strong is the breeze and what way is it going and what's the small boundary and all those kind of things. So, yeah, we need to take it into consideration. I think Richie's dealt with the wind really well with bowlers in each end and it's definitely in our plans when we're bowling in the nets, pretending that there's a strong breeze going across the nets to replicate the centre wicket,” he had to add. 

Previously, Scotland have been on the wrong side of results, having not made it to the 2019 ODI World Cup before scuppering in the 2022 T20 World Cup despite the win against the mighty West Indies. Watt recollected the past results and insisted that they had ‘let themselves down’ a little bit in the previous editions. 

“No, I don't think so. We feel like we've let ourselves down a little bit in the World Cups previously. So, I think we've kind of put full expectations on ourselves to do better than we have done in the past couple. So, it's all about just making ourselves proud and making the country proud and just going out there and giving 110%,” he added. 

Incidentally, in 2023, Scotland players travelled to Antigua to take part in the Cool and Smooth T20, where eight of them faced off against each other. There was Berrington, Matthew Cross, Michael Leask, Chris Greaves and George Munsey. It was Munsey’s second appearance in the competition after appearing for Jennings Tigers. When asked whether that experience helped them, Watt was affirmative in his reply. 

“Yeah, 100%. A lot of the boys came over here for a month, I think it was, so they're definitely used to the conditions. I've chatted to the boys a lot about what it's like to bowl spin here, what's it like with the wind and just local knowledge. And they seem to know a lot about the wickets here,” he said of the competition. 

“So, I think that was a really great experience for our guys, not just to be out there playing cricket, but to experience different conditions for exactly times like this where it's pretty critical and it comes down to a must-win game. And these guys came out here last year and played for a month. So, yeah, I know they all had a great experience and it's massively come into our favour now that we're playing in Antigua,” he concluded.

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