MASTER BLASTER

MacLeod went from skivvy to sensation in one fell swoop as Scotland’s centurion put Auld Enemy to the sword in Auld Reekie!

FROM Edgbaston to Edinburgh, and from self-confessed skivvy to self-made superstar, Calum MacLeod smiles at the idea his name could feature in pub quizzes for years to come. So, who is the only Scotsman in history to have scored a century against England? Yet was also part of an England side in a victorious Ashes series. Well, sort of.

‘I think it’s a little bit of a stretch to say that I played for them,’ MacLeod tells

Sportsmail. ‘But, yeah, I was part of the squad.’ He is referring to the summer of 2009, when he filled in as 12th man for England in the third Test against Australia.

‘I was playing for Warwickshire and it’s up to the county hosting the Test match to provide a couple of guys to be 12th man,’ explains the 31-year-old.

‘You just run around getting the water and drinks for the guys and, basically, you’re the skivvy for the day.

‘I look at it as a good experience because it was informative in a lot of ways. I’ve always enjoyed being around good players and real top-class performers.

‘If you’re paying attention, you get to see at close quarters how they operate. Then it’s up to you what you take from that.

‘You can find a way of trying to implement some of those things into your own game. Maybe I did that subconsciously.’

The surnames of some of those involved in that England side speak for themselves; Strauss, Cook, Flintoff, Broad, Swann. Jimmy Anderson played, too, and took six wickets, including a five-for in the first innings.

Anderson’s exploits would have been of particular interest to MacLeod, then a promising young fast bowler who could chip in with a few runs with the bat.

When, as a youngster, he watched Scotland play Australia at Worcester in the 1999 World Cup, the master at work was wicket-taking machine Glenn McGrath. MacLeod has instead gone on to emulate McGrath’s team-mate Adam Gilchrist with whom he shares much in common. Certainly, in terms of style.

After reinventing himself following a bowling ban due to a problem with his action in 2009, he has forged a stellar career as a destructive opening batsman.

As England discovered to their cost on an exhilarating afternoon in the summer of 2018, MacLeod is a supremely talented operator on his day.

He is the man who delivered Scottish cricket’s finest hour.

His unbeaten 140 from 94 balls at The Grange saw him become the first Scotsman to score an ODI hundred against England. It was also the quickest century ever scored by a Scot and set the platform for their first-ever ODI victory over an England team who would go on to become world champions just 12 months later.

The Rolling Stones had played BT Murrayfield the night before, but it was MacLeod who provided an entire country with no end of satisfaction. The English bowling attack had been thumped halfway to Haymarket.

‘We didn’t see much of them in the build-up or really hear much from them,’ recalls MacLeod. ‘The message from Kyle Coetzer (Scotland captain) was: “Someone has to beat England eventually. Why not us?” You obviously still need certain things to go in your favour. We got off to a great start and it was a very good wicket to bat on.

‘You try and steal ideas off the best teams. We’d watched the way cricket was going. In white-ball cricket, you’ve got to go out and play your shots.

‘There’s no point just trying to get 200 or 250. I’ve played in Scotland teams in the past where we’d be happy if we got that sort of total. It would have been considered a good showing.

‘But we had seen how England were playing and getting to No 1 in the world. We wanted to match that and be positive.

‘Kyle deserves a lot of credit for that shift in mentality. It’s all right having a captain who says they want to play positively, but Kyle is often the guy who leads from the front and does it for us.’

The credibility of the result is not in doubt. Seven of the players who started against Scotland went on to star in the World Cup final against New Zealand in 2019.

‘It wasn’t like England had a really poor day and got bowled out for 100,’ says MacLeod. ‘Both teams played good cricket. We played close to our peak and beat them. It’s one of the strange things with associate cricket. It’s probably one of the least pressure games we’ll ever play.

‘I’ve played in Scotland games in the past when you know it’s all about funding. If you lose, the funding goes, which therefore means your wage goes.

‘We played Kenya in 2014 to qualify for the World Cup. If we had lost, there was a chance some of us might not have been able to continue as professional cricketers. That’s a bit more pressure than playing against the No1 side in the world. Nobody expects you to win, so you can express yourself with a bit of freedom.

‘That’s why we keep asking for more games. The more games we can play like that, the more chance we can show the world that Scotland has some really good cricketers.’

There was once a time when the events at a bowling green at Blairgowrie would have had more chance of featuring on the back page of Scottish newspapers than cricket. But MacLeod changed all that.

The sport has been growing steadily in this country over the past decade and his record-breaking efforts in 2018 pressed the ignite button.

The immediate aftermath and subsequent pitch invasion was a blur. Yet the scenes of euphoria are also his greatest memory from the day.

‘The scenes at the end were crazy. Seeing what it meant to people was just as special as scoring those runs and winning,’ noted MacLeod.

‘The pride and the passion for cricket in Scotland was brilliant to see. It’s sometimes forgotten just how much passion there is for the game.

‘We flew out to Holland a few days later after the couple of T20s against Pakistan.

‘There was a guy at the airport doing the baggage. He came up to us and was like: “You’re the guys who beat England the other day”.

‘He didn’t know anything about cricket. He said he’d never watched it previously but had seen the highlights and seen it in the paper. He wanted to shake our hands.’

MacLeod, who was named ICC Associate Player of the Year for 2018, hopes to showcase his talents in the T20 World Cup in Australia later this year if it goes ahead.

‘We don’t know what’s going on. I’m just trying to get as fit as possible,’ he adds. ‘We probably didn’t play our best cricket in the qualifiers, but we still managed to qualify.

‘I’m excited because we’ve got batsmen who can take the game away from any team on their day. We should be an exciting team to watch.’