Kyle Coetzer believes 2021 is an important year for Scottish cricket at both elite and grassroots level.
In October and November, captain Coetzer will lead the Saltires in the T20 World Cup in India.
Meanwhile, in the 50-over game, Scotland are set to play three tri-series against Papua New Guinea and Oman in April, Nepal and Namibia in July and the USA and UAE in August.
Those matches are part of the ICC Cricket World Cup League 2 event, which is part of the qualification process for the 2023 50-over World Cup.
Aberdonian Coetzer said: “I know everyone will have that (the T20 World Cup) in the back of their minds and, as soon as we’re allowed to get back to training, that’s definitely something that will be highlighted when it comes to our targets and ambitions for the year.
“We want to be prepared to do as well as we can in that tournament, but along the way this year we can’t take our eyes of the Cricket World Cup League Two.
“We need to finish in the top two or three to book our place in the qualifying tournament for 2023 50-over World Cup.
“If we don’t do that, then it gets messy and more complicated when it comes to qualifying.
“We wouldn’t be out of it and teams have come through that route, but it would be more difficult.
“We can’t take our eye off the ball – the T20 World Cup is a big priority – but the ODIs and the series we’ll have has to be a huge focus as well.
“If we can get a good start in those and build-up momentum then you can put yourself in a pretty powerful position come the end of the year.
“It’s a massive year for us and I think defining is a good word to use in terms of how things could turn out.
“We are where we are as a cricketing nation, but we have huge opportunities around the corner to progress and make a mark on the world stage again.
“There are lots of things we’ve got to push for and in my eyes we’ve got to push for getting through the group stages at the T20 World Cup, because if you do that it qualifies you for the T20 World Cup in 2022.”
At a domestic and local level, the pandemic meant last summer’s cricket season was basically a write off.
Coetzer believes it’s important for the future of the sport that this year there is some kind of season of note at a local level.
The 36-year-old added: “One of my fears of last summer with no cricket being played really was that people will find other interests.
“People might like cricket, but if they can’t play they might find other things they like doing more and we could lose cricketers male and female from all levels of the game.
“It’s so important that cricket can get up and running again this summer and people can get the buzz back.
“But that is also why it’s important that as a nation we get players playing on TV, because people can see the games on TV and that gets them interested.
“I remember during the 1999 World Cup, we had neighbours of ours outside playing cricket when before that we didn’t even know they played cricket.
“Every year when Wimbledon is on people play tennis and it’s the same with any major sporting event.
“We need to some kind of summer to speak of to get people playing cricket again.”
