Richie Berrington believes Scotland are a team on the rise as they look to pull off a T20 World Cup upset against the West Indies in Hobart on Monday.
Last year, Scotland shocked Bangladesh and then overcame Papua New Guinea and co-hosts Oman to reach the Super 12s, the first time they had gone past the first stage of any World Cup event.
All of their preliminary first-round matches will take place in Hobart this year, starting against the Windies, the only team to have won the tournament twice but whose stock has fallen in recent years.
“I think we can take a lot of confidence from the white-ball cricket we’ve played this year,” Berrington said.
“And after last year’s World Cup, we’re really looking forward to this one, and hopefully we can build on some of the performances we had last year.”
The Windies were defending champions at last year’s event but won just one of their five Super 12s games – and were bowled out for 55 in their opening game by England.
The likes of Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard are no longer in the picture, while Shimron Hetmyer was bizarrely ruled out after missing his flight to Australia.
While their squad is light on star power, captain Nicholas Pooran, Jason Holder and Evin Lewis are regulars in the Indian Premier League and Odean Smith is regarded as a hot all-round prospect.
“If you look at it, there were a lot of big names when we won those two World Cups, but we also had a lot of big names in the last year’s World Cup as well and we didn’t qualify,” Pooran said.
“It should be a balance with experience and younger players. We don’t have the big names, but we have formed a team here, and that’s been really important.”
