Australia is planning to visit Scotland for their first men’s T20I series in September, which hasn’t happened in the past 11 years. The series will take place in Edinburgh and include three games at The Grange on September 4, 6, and 7.
This tour is a warm-up for Australia’s five ODIs against England, starting at Trent Bridge on September 19. The T20I series was announced while both teams were getting ready for an important T20 World Cup Group B game in St Lucia. The result of this game will decide whether England or Scotland moves on to the Super Eight stage with Australia. Right now, Australia is leading Group B with six points, while England and Scotland have three and five points, respectively. Scotland’s chance to move forward depends on either beating Australia or having a better net run-rate than England if they lose.
.Australia was supposed to play three one-day matches and a Twenty20 game against Ireland in August and September. But Ireland couldn’t afford to host the games, so they had to cancel. Looking for another option, Cricket Australia talked to Cricket Scotland earlier this year. “Cricket Australia reached out to us and said they wanted to work together, and we were happy to do so,” said Trudy Lindblade, the CEO of Cricket Scotland, to ESPNcricinfo.
“We just had to figure out how to make it work. It was a clear choice for us to have Australia play in Scotland before they go to England, and we just needed to find a way to make it happen. Thanks to the help of [CA chief executive] Nick Hockley and his team at Cricket Australia, we’ve managed to find a solution.”
Scotland and Australia have played against each other just five times in international cricket, and all those games were one-day internationals (ODIs). These meetings are quite uncommon, with only two games taking place outside of the World Cup, and both were at The Grange. In all of these matches, Australia won. The most recent game between the two teams was a single ODI in 2013, where Australia won by a huge margin of 200 runs. Richie Berrington, who is now Scotland’s captain, is the only player from either team who played in that 2013 match.
