They are the Lost Boys of Scottish cricket; the vast majority of the squad which turned out for their country at Under-19 level in 1999.
One of their number, Gordon Drummond, has subsequently graduated to national captain, and a couple of the others have tasted life on the international stage, but the majority of the 16 youngsters, who were initially under the tutelage of former England batsman, Jim Love, have either vanished from cricket altogether, progressed into coaching, or taken up assorted roles with various Caledonian clubs.
Which, when you consider that they are all aged between 29 and 32, hints at the fact that something peculiar happened with this particular group of players.
They gained their age-group opportunity during an unprecedented period of success for the Scots, who appeared in the group stages of the World Cup for the first time in the summer of 1999, and one might have anticipated that five or six of these performers would have graduated into the senior ranks throughout the next few years.
But instead, following the Scots' failure to qualify for the next World Cup, and the departure of Love, many of these individuals' aspirations were either put on hold or dashed altogether.
One former Cricket Scotland employee told me: "Yes, the class of 1999 was a very odd one. James Forrest stopped playing cricket almost immediately. Bryan Clarke is still the wicket-keeper at Uddingston and Mark Ferguson still turns out at Glenpark. (Mark Ferguson has also represented Hong Kong and is in their squad for the T20 World Cup Qualifiers in March).
But goodness knows what happened to the very promising Neil Fleming!
Steven Gilmour is now a Carlton player (unless he has moved), who played in the U-19 World Cup in New Zealand in 2002, and is now an excellent coach. Peter Jack was ruined by being called into the national second team far too early and stopped playing 10 years ago. Gavin Pitt still plays for Prestwick, and left-arm spinner, Alastair Rawlinson, got called into the Scotland B squad at some stage, while Robert More also gained a few senior call-ups."
But, in the final analysis, this was surely a meagre return from such a talented list.
"There are some massive differences between then and now. I see the young guys now who go into the system and they are kept there for a good number of years, which allows them to develop within the structure, and eventually grow into full internationalists. Craig Wright seems to be doing a fantastic job and works hand in hand with Andy Tennant and Pete Steindl, and, if you are a young guy involved in the set-up at the moment, you really couldn't ask for a better set of coaches than that.
We were probably among the last "crop", who fell into the old system of having a couple of net sessions during the winter and that was your lot. Having said that, I did always think that there should have been something in place after the under-19s, another level of representative cricket such as we have nowadays [with the Scotland Lions] and things might have turned out differently for a few of us back then.
"On a personal level, I probably didn't do myself too many favours or endear myself to the powers-that-be, and my son was born when I was only 20, so certainly at that point, my cricket was put on the back burner for a while. However, in the years that followed, I did as much as any young cricketer, I was very fit, scoring runs and keeping well, and I believe that playing further representative cricket would have benefited me.
"Therefore, I am delighted that things have changed and lads such as Craig Wallace have been given opportunities and, more importantly, have been encouraged to stay in the system. Fortunately, times have changed and guys seem to be getting developed better [than was the case at the start of the millennium]. I am not saying that the present structure is perfect, nor that I or the others would have gone on to play international cricket, but it certainly seems better now than it used to be in a number of ways."
That 1999 collective was probably an isolated instance. After all, as Clarke added, he emerged in the same age group as Drummond and Simon Smith and was also part of the previous year's U-19 ensemble, who included the likes of Fraser Watts and Gregor Maiden, both of whom have amassed a stack of caps for Scotland and the Saltires throughout the last decade and longer.
There again, one shouldn't ignore the fact that at least one member of the '99 squad decided to pursue an alternative career path with auspicious consequences. Alan Duncan, whose father of the same name, was one of the triumphant Freuchie side which made history by winning the National Village Cup at Lord's in 1985, has advanced into a talented bowler at the game's spiritual home, has gained his Level 4 coaching certificate [in 2010] and, only last summer, found himself engaged on a three-week stint of coaching with Sachin Tendulkar. In which light, it wouldn't do to pretend that every youngster desires to stay in his homeland.
"Maybe it was because I wasn't living in Scotland or I wasn't the right person at the time, who knows? It was always my ambition to play for Scotland, but it never happened," said Duncan, who has been in charge of the MCC Youth Programme at Loughborough University since the end of September.
"I am not bitter about it, because I have been able to make a living from doing something I love, I went to an U-19 World Cup in 1998 and played against the likes of Chris Gayle, Harbhajan Singh and Virender Sehwag, and how many youngsters get the chance to test themselves against the best in the world?
"I have been down here [at Lord's] for more than 10 years and was on the ground staff for three of them, and just to be associated with this place is special. I've got to know so many great people and that was one of the reasons why I was working with Sachin [prior to the England series]. He is very down to earth, doesn't want any special treatment, and he lives just round the corner from where I am in London, so I have done a bit of work with him and also his son, and it has been an honour. I am 31 now, and am looking for the next challenge in my life – and it would be good to find something in Scotland – but I realise that the likes of Pete Steindl and Andy Tennant are doing a fine job."
Regrets, there may be a few. But, from both Clarke and Duncan's perspective, too few to mention or make a huge song and dance about. Time will tell whether these cricket devotees can further assist their country in other capacities, but if 1999 yielded a strange fruit, this is not the moment to be flinging raspberries at the past generation.