Mark Watt puts paperwork to Scotland's success

In the T20 World Cup group match against West Indies on Monday, Scotland’s Mark Watt gave his own spin.
Scotland’s Mark Watt picked up three wickets against WI on Monday | afp
Scotland’s Mark Watt picked up three wickets against WI on Monday | afp

CHENNAI: Analysts and data-crunchers have assumed a larger-than-life role in all sport. This is especially true in T20 where marginal gains could directly translate to a big win. Cricket teams England to name one — have relied on signals from the dressing room to convey a message about match-ups, whom to bowl, state of play et. al. It’s a way of trying to stay ahead of the game while not disrupting the flow of the game.

In the T20 World Cup group match against West Indies on Monday, Scotland’s Mark Watt gave his own spin. A piece of paper informing him about match-ups, numbers, who he might come up against and so on. It did help considering the left-arm spinner bowled the Scots to a famous win over West Indies in their group game at Hobart.

Before coming to the piece of paper he seemed to be referring from time to time, Watt also teased batters by, for want of a better phrase, extending the pitch to a good 24-25 yards. He got into his delivery stride from way beyond the crease and it caught the batters off guard, figures of 3/12 (16 dots) reflect that. While he did get the occasional purchase off the surface, he varied his pace and bowled a stump-to-stump line. When the asking rate got too big in the end, he also gave the ball some air to tempt the batters into aerial shots. It was the sign of a thinking cricketer. Each of his last three overs produced a wicket as the West Indies couldn’t hit him of the square. But this was no one-off. In fact, the 26-year-old has now picked up 14 wickets at an average of 19.1 over 12 matches.

“It can throw you off a little bit,” captain Richie Berrington, who has faced Watt’s 24-yard deliveries in the nets, told after the match. “Something he’s sort of mastered over the last couple of years. It’s something that worked really well for him. Yeah, he’s a clever cricketer, he’s always looking for different ways out to the batsman.” Berrington, who conceded that Scotland use a lot of analyses, also spoke about the piece of paper Watt had on him. “As I say, he’s on top of his game and he’s always looking to stay ahead and find different ways to see what the batters are trying to do. I’m sure he had a few notes on there just to remind himself of who he was coming up against and what he was looking to do.”

In another match, Zimbabwe defeated Ireland by 31 runs.

Brief scores: Scotland 160/5 in 20 ovs (Munsey 66 n.o, Joseph 2/28, Holder 2/14) bt West Indies 118 in 18.3 ovs (Holder 38, Watt 3/12); Zimbabwe 174/7 in 20 ovs (Raza 82, Little 3/24) bt Ireland 143/9 in 20 ovs (Campher 27, Ngarava 2/22, Chatara 2/22, Muzarabani 3/23).

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