Having grown up watching Scotland play at Mannofield it’s poignant the Aberdeen ground is where Matthew Cross has begun his captaincy of the national team.
With regular skipper Richie Berrington injured, vice-captain Cross has stepped up to lead the Saltires in four Cricket World Cup League 2 fixtures, the first of which was a win over United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Wednesday.
Today Scotland face United States of America (USA), before meeting UAE again tomorrow.
Having watched cricket at Mannofield as a youngster and started his playing career at the venue with Aberdeenshire, Cross is enjoying the experience.
He said: “I couldn’t have imagined it a few months ago if you told me I’d be captaining Scotland at home.
“I grew up playing all my cricket at Mannofield and was part of the Aberdeenshire side that won the league and cup double in 2009.
“I’m really proud to have had my first game as Scotland captain at Mannofield.
“It’s nice to be back and playing international cricket here. I used to watch all the international games at Mannofield when I was growing up.
“The ground is looking great and I’m looking forward to the next three games.”
Disappointment for Berrington
Although Cross is proud to be skippering Scotland, the feeling is tempered by the absence of Berrington, who took over the captaincy from Kyle Coetzer at the start of the summer.
He added: “It’s pretty disappointing Richie isn’t able to play this week.
“He’s been such a big part of everything over the last few years, but he has been here supporting.
“I’m lucky that I’ve got a lot of good people around me – guys like Kyle, Calum MacLeod and Saafyan Sharif, who are more experienced then myself and have made life easy.
“Once Richie was ruled out, it’s part of my responsibility to step in.
“It’s maybe happened earlier than I thought with Richie only taking over the captaincy this summer.”
Cross wants weekend to remember
Scotland made the perfect start at Mannofield on Wednesday, defeating UAE by 64 runs.
Cross is hoping it can be a weekend to remember as the Saltires chase two more wins in back-to-back fixtures.
He said: “It’s always important how you start these series and we’ve got some confidence now going into the weekend double-header.
“In every series, we want to win four out of four – we never turn up to lose.
“But these games are tough and you have to earn the right to win, we saw that on Wednesday by batting hard to make a score before some exceptional performances with the ball.
“We’re getting quite used to playing these games back to back. It is tough, but every time we’ve done it we’ve found a way to get through it.
“We’ve usually put in some good performances in the back-to-back games and hopefully the guys can again.”
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