Scotland captain Kyle Coetzer has recently shared that there is no shortage of talents in Associate Nations and it’s just they need a stage to showcase it at the highest level. However, Coetzer also shared the journey of Chris Graves when he was addressing the press after leading his team to a nail-biting 6-run win over Bangladesh in their T20 World Cup opener in Oman on Sunday as well.
It was their first-ever win over a Test-playing nation in an ICC tournament. After being sent into bat, Scotland was struggling at 51 for 6 but Chris Greaves steadied the ship with an unbeaten 28-ball 45, including 2 sixes and 4 boundaries as Scotland posted 140 in their allotted overs. Later, they successfully restricted Bangladesh for 134/7 in 20 overs to registered the win.
However, Chris Graves starred with the ball too as he removed Shakib Al Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim when they were looking to steady the ship. However, Bangladesh never recovered and eventually lost. While talking about Chris Greaves’s journey to the T20 World Cup, captain Coetzer said that he has made a lot of sacrifices to play at the highest level of cricket. Notably, Greaves claimed a 4-wicket haul against PNG in Dubai while making his debut earlier this month.
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“I am really proud of Greaves. he really sacrificed a lot. He was delivering parcels for Amazon not too long ago, and now is getting Player of the Match against Bangladesh. I am not sure if he will appreciate me saying this,” Coetzer said. “Seeing the performance from Mark Watt and Chris Greaves with the bat today, they are lesser-known people who had to make many sacrifices to get to where they are today.”
“Greaves isn’t a contracted player in Scotland. He was on the fringes. He put his hand up, worked extremely hard and put himself in the picture. Going back a month, he wouldn’t even start in one of these games. Look at what he has done. It is just proof in the pudding that there are some quality players around Associate cricket. They just need the platform to show it,” the skipper has added.
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“We believed we can achieve this win. It didn’t quite go all our way, but it is a special feeling to beat Bangladesh. We have been planning for this tournament for a long time. We only played together as a group two months ago, after waiting a long time following the qualifiers,” Kyle Coetzer shared.
“Guys were working hard behind the scenes, but it sometimes seemed we were working for nothing. Our tours kept getting cancelled. It was hard to manage, but this is reaping the rewards of keeping the faith that we will be a better team when this tournament comes around,” he concluded.
Scotland will play against PNG on October 19 at the Al Amerat Stadium in Oman.
