Cricket Scotland have announced that 13 men’s national squad members have been awarded contracts for the 2021/22 season, with Tom Sole joining the 12 existing full-time team members whose deals have been renewed for another year, with the new contracts running until April 2022.
Tom Sole has been added to the group on a six-month contract, which sees him become part of the contract structure in which the players in both ODI and T20 formats receive a ‘ranking’ based on their performances on the pitch, as well as a number of other factors, including off-field contribution, fielding and fitness. Those rankings then correlate with the level of remuneration.
Cricket Scotland have also confirmed that the Men’s national squad will be travelling to Netherlands in May 2021, to play in two One-Day Internationals on 19th and 21st May in Rotterdam. The series marks the return of International cricket for Scotland, who last played in December 2019 in UAE during the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup qualifiers. Similarly for Netherlands, it will be the first time they host International games at home even since the COVID-19 lockdowns started to happen since March 2020.
The Dutch were involved in International matches recently during their tour of Nepal for a Tri-nation T20I series and the players have been turning up for their clubs in the ongoing Topklasse season in the 50-overs format ever since returning back home. KNCB have also announced the squad for the two ODI matches, which sees the return of Logan van Beek after a long gap of time, and Saqib Zulfiqur. Most of the squad members were involved in a recently concluded 50-overs tour of Ireland, where they played three matches against the Irish Wolves squad.
Scotland Squad
Kyle Coetzer (Captain), Richard Berrington, Matthew Cross, Calum Macleod, George Munsey, Dylan Budge, Mark Watt, Safyaan Sharif, Michael Leask, Craig Wallace, Ali Evans, Gavin Main, Hamza Tahir and Adrian Neill
Gus Mackay, CEO of Cricket Scotland said in the official press release “It’s been a long wait for the players and staff, but we have been working hard behind the scenes to ensure that the team are able to start playing international cricket again as soon as possible and we are delighted to be able to announce these matches against the Netherlands. I’d like to thank everyone at KNCB who has worked so hard with us to make these fixtures happen while respecting all COVID-19 protocols. It’s great to be looking ahead to international cricket again after so long without a match.”
Roland Lefebvre, High Performance Manager of KNCB said: “The ODI matches against Scotland will be our first big games in the Netherlands for two years. It has been a big challenge to organize international cricket during the Covid pandemic but we are very pleased and excited to welcome Scotland on our shores and look forward to the contest which is part of our preparation for the first Super League series against Ireland in early June.”
Netherlands Squad
Pieter Seelaar (Captain), Scott Edwards, Maxwell O’Dowd, Stephen Myburgh, Ben Cooper, Aryan Dutt, Phillippe Boissevain, Bas de Leede, Saqib Zulfiqur, Paul van Meekeren, Logan van Beek, Vivian Kingma and Tobias Visee
Scotland Men’s tour of Netherlands (Local Timings)
19th May 2021: Scotland vs Netherlands – 1st ODI (Scorecard)
20th May 2021: Scotland vs Netherlands – 2nd ODI (Scorecard)
