Berrington can’t wait to test himself against the best at T20 World Cup
THERE are certainly benefits to beings stuck in a hotel bubble, especially when you’re a new parent.
Richie Berrington is certainly grateful to have been given an unexpected opportunity to spend time with his wife and son Oliver over the past year due to a lack of cricket opportunities but, ahead of the start of the T20 World Cup tomorrow, the veteran batter will now be well rested for the challenges ahead.
“One of the positives of the whole lockdown situation was so much special time with the family which obviously you would never normally get,” says the 34 year-old. “Going from having all that time to now being away again, it takes a bit of time to get used to. But it’s great that you have got Facetime and all that sort of stuff now which does make it a bit easier. And the extra sleep helps too.”
Scotland will need Berrington to be at his best if they are to achieve their goal of making it through the first round to take their place among the cricket elite in the Super 12 phase.
A lot of water has passed under the bridge since the Saltires’ last involvement in a World Cup back in 2016 when they couldn’t make it beyond that preliminary stage but did at least record their first tournament victory against Hong Kong.
Since then there have been numerous landmarks, including a first win over a full member side and that momentous victory against England in 2018.
The next step will be to win at least two of the group games against Papua New Guinea, hosts Oman and Bangladesh to surge through to matches against the top Test-playing nations.
“We’ve had bits of success at different times, and some big wins as well against some big teams,” adds Berrington. “The way we’ve progressed even with the lack of cricket in the last year and a half, it’s been pretty amazing actually to see how guys have kept raising the bar.
“It would be huge for us to qualify and for Scottish cricket as a whole just to take that next step forward and keep getting more opportunities basically to play more full members and keep pushing our case for us becoming a full member ourselves.”
Berrington has plenty of World Cup experience to call upon, including that 2016 adventure in India when narrow defeats to Afghanistan and Zimbabwe proved costly.
“To play in a World Cup for your country is one of the greatest things you can do,” he reveals. “It is obviously a great honour. Whenever you get an opportunity on the international stage you want to obviously perform at your best and hopefully try and win again for your country.
“You want to play against the best and you want to try and beat the best so in that sense, it’s an exciting opportunity that’s coming up. It was a pretty cool experience to be honest, playing in India in 2016. I’d maybe played there once or twice before but playing a World Cup there was pretty special.
“For us – as it is now – the goal was to get into that next stage and unfortunately we didn’t get there. We did get our first ever win against a team at a World Cup, against Hong Kong, so hopefully this time around we can take that next step.”
On his own future, the South African-born batter is keeping his options open and has entered no thoughts about this potentially being his final bow on the big stage.
“I couldn’t put a number on it to be honest,” he added.”Personally I just take one tour at a time and it’s just about trying to keep making sure I’m doing what I need to do really from a physical point of view and performing on the pitch.
“The hunger is still there and there’s nothing better for me than putting on that Scotland shirt. There’s still a lot I’d like to achieve in the game.”