When the news first surfaced on Thursday that Cricket Scotland had been forced to cancel their eagerly-anticipated ODI meeting with England on August 12, following the floods which made the Water of Leith burst its banks, one's initial reaction was to feel sympathy for the governing body; for the poor, bedraggled ground staff at the Citylets Grange, who have watched their beloved arena turn into a venue more suitable for water polo than cricket in recent weeks; and the supporters who had already bought their tickets for the Scots' tussle with the best side in the world at the moment.
Yet, to a large extent, that original sense that there's nothing anybody can do about the weather has been replaced by a nagging feeling that, somehow or other, this fixture should have been staged, even if it meant disappointing the corporate clients who had ear-marked the Grange for their annual flirtation with the summer sport. Cricket Scotland's chief executive, Roddy Smith, was clearly frustrated and disappointed at the turn of events which led to the decision being implemented – and publicly, at least, the ECB has been supportive of their action – but surely, when you consider that Scots have been playing the game since the 18th century and some of our longest-established clubs were in existence decades before the SFA and SRU, there had to be a Plan B or C, an alternative venue which could have been chosen to host this contest. Or has the rain so demoralised everybody they have simply elected to write off the whole summer?
Within hours of hearing the news, I spoke to Kenny McCurdie, the indefatigable groundsman at Mannofield, the home of Aberdeenshire CC, and asked him whether there were any cricketing reasons why the fixture could not have been relocated to the Granite City. He was cautious in his response, partially because he has experienced all manner of travails, be it vandalism or extreme meteorological conditions – 15mm of rain fell on Aberdeen in 20 minutes last Sunday – but his basic answer was interesting. Yes, there would be insurmountable problems in transferring 3000 or 4000 tickets between cities, which are 150 miles apart, but the way the issue has been handled seems to suggest that Scotland only has one ground which is capable of handling these major occasions. Which, when one reflects that the late, great Don Bradman played his final innings in Britain at a packed Mannofield, where fans turned up to watch cricket and were not unduly bothered about schmoozing and quaffing champagne in marquees, is surely an indictment of the inflexibility which has surrounded the authorities' behaviour.
Mind you, that intransigence is not a recent phenomenon, nor has it happened solely on Smith's watch. Twenty years ago, a new generation of Scottish players began to harbour ambitions of competing on the international stage and several clubs, including Grange, Clydesdale, Greenock and Aberdeenshire actively sought high-profile matches against former test luminaries or Full Member development squads. At that juncture – and let's remember that it is now 13 years since the Scots made their World Cup debut – somebody should have devised a long-term strategy, which encouraged three or four grassroots organisations to develop their facilities with a view to being able to host international fixtures in future seasons. This wouldn't have been cheap – and the onus should not have rested with the clubs alone, but been arranged through districts with at least one first-class ground in every region of the country. But, too often, narrow self-interest and parochial squabbling took precedence over the bigger picture and we have now been left with a situation where England will not travel North, because there is nowhere for them to play, and this for a contest which was still three weeks away!
Some may retort that such an outcome might spare Scotland's blushes, given the calibre of the ECB squad which demolished Australia in the recent ODI series, but the only way that Pete Steindl's personnel can contemplate closing the gap on the likes of Ireland and even the Netherlands is to begin doing more than simply making up the numbers when the big guns come to town. In the last few years, the Irish have beaten England, Pakistan and drawn with Zimbabwe in the World Cup, whilst the Dutch defeated their English rivals in a previous World T20 tournament and are currently at the summit of their group in the CB40 campaign. Scotland, by comparison, have endured another pretty miserable season, which makes it doubly strange that there are so few changes to the national squad from one month to another. I can't be the only observer who is fed up with hearing tales of how the Saltires "did well" for 50 or 60 overs of a match and, to his credit, Majid Haq said last week he was sick of people making excuses for failure. He is not alone.
Ultimately, though, with the England joust no longer on the calendar, next week's meeting with Bangladesh has suddenly assumed a high level of importance. It may only be in cricket's abbreviated, pyjama-coloured format, but the Scots urgently need to demonstrate that they can convert promise into the hard currency of wins. I have been hearing for the last two years how much potential exists in the present international party, but, too often it seems that batsmen still get out for 20s or 30s rather than producing a genuinely game-changing knock, or bowlers serve up dross at the outset of contests and have to rely on Haq and his fellow spinners to bale them out of a mess. A couple of decades ago, this might almost have been defensible, when it was amateurs against professionals, but nowadays, the majority of the Scots are full-time performers. They can't expect to be judged by the standards of their predecessors.
Doubtless, this will be dismissed as heresy or unpatriotic criticism in some quarters. Fine. I can live with that. But, at the climax of what has been another depressing week for Caledonian cricket, a few players and officials should admit that they must do better. If they don't, they are always going to be swimming in a sea of mediocrity.