It’s the stuff you dream about, your alarm clock waking you up to the blunt reality that no, you haven’t just taken your team to a World Cup. However, for Scotland’s Megan McColl, there was no alarm clock – she actually did it. Speaking to the Noughtie Child Podcast, 23-year-old McColl tells her story of batting her way into Scottish history.
A ten-team tournament was what separated Scotland from a T20 Women’s World Cup place, a familiar story having never qualified before. Facing previous World Cup participants Sri Lanka and Thailand, along with Uganda and the USA, group A was not an easy feat. With Ireland in group B, there was a lingering feeling that the sides would surely meet in the crucial semi-final.
It was only going to be a matter of time before Scotland Women made a World Cup but that didn’t guarantee anything. “Nobody ever really said the words. It was just a feeling that we all had from the very first day, I think,” Megan explained. Internally, the belief and inevitability was growing.
The Scots have tapped into their world-wide diaspora with players having been born in England, Australia and even the USA. “We're obviously quite a widespread out group. It was going to be quite a long tour, we knew it was and we had a lot of prep beforehand to be able to get used to being back around each other and figure out how we were going to play as a group,” McColl said.
McColl pinpoints a number of ODIs played by Scotland out in Dubai ahead of the tournament as a crucial factor in their success. While the qualifying format was 20-over, the time on the field in the 50-overs gave the squad an opportunity to familiarise with the conditions and playing alongside each other.
Sri Lanka and Ireland were the two sides who were probably tipped as ‘favourites’ ahead of the competition but eyes really should have been on the underdogs, the dark horse - Scotland. The attention had been on Sri Lanka who had found a win against England at the back end of the English summer and Ireland who had registered convincing wins over Zimbabwe.
“I think we were the 5th ranked team in that tournament,” McColl said. “A lot of people just expected it to just be the obvious people that would qualify for that tournament,” she added.
“I think we've all just developed more than people probably know because we don't play a lot of cricket that people see. I think that they don't see how much effort we all put in and in a way it actually benefited us”. Scotland’s previous series was an October clash against Ireland, away in Desert Springs, Spain restricting the hype and interest around the series.
“We didn't have any pressures going into that competition whereas I think they [Ireland] did and I think they probably had that in the back of their head the whole time,” Megan said.
Megan McColl was a player who certainly did not feel the pressure as she ceased her opportunity to open the batting for Scotland. Scoring a steady 50 – her maiden IT20 half century – McColl batted alongside captain Kathryn Bryce to secure Scotland’s World Cup place.
“It was amazing. I think to do it and nobody really expected me to, that's what the biggest thing is,” she recalls. “Our team, the Irish team, there are a lot of big names. I'm one of the few that's left in Scotland, I'm not getting my name flashed about a regional team down in England and I think to be able to show the people that are still in Scotland work as hard as everybody else, I was so happy.”
McColl is right. She found herself in a game full of well-known players, the likes of Gaby Lewis, Amy Hunter and Orla Prendergast bolstering the Irish side with regional professionals, Abtaha Maqsood, Kathryn Bryce and Rachel Slater throughout the Scotland side. However, it was Megan who stepped up and dominated with the bat.
While celebrating their success is a nice idea, McColl is quick to say that the hard work has started again and the focus is on Bangladesh in October. “The World Cup's an experience that a lot of us have been waiting for, for a very long time. I think the group that we've been placed in, I think is supposed to be the easier group when you look at it,” McColl said.
“Honestly, we know that it's going to be difficult, being in Bangladesh the conditions are gonna be completely different to what most of us have ever played in so I think that will obviously be a massive factor.”
Could Scotland win the T20 World Cup? Megan won’t give a straight answer and instead opts for the diplomatic response. I'm not going to say we're going to win. I'm also not going to say that we're not gonna win, who knows, we could maybe cause an upset!
Scotland will start their inaugural World Cup campaign on the 3rd October 2024 where they face hosts, Bangladesh at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium. The full episode with Megan McColl is available here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2AFvPSXNBZhr1P6UeKAZqc
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