Minutes after the team finished its World Cup with a loss to Nepal, Trudy Lindblade, the chief executive of Cricket Scotland, interacted with a select group of Indian journalists on the challenges, opportunities, and way forward for the Associate member nations in the world of cricket.
Q. Can you narrate how Cricket Scotland pulled off getting the team ready on a 10-day notice and still being competitive in the World Cup?
A. It was 7 o’clock when I got that call on a Saturday morning (January 20). There had obviously been lots of media (reports) about who that (replacement for Bangladesh) might be, and obviously we hoped it would be us, but we didn’t know.
So, when I got the call, it was just pure excitement and opportunity for us. Obviously, I felt for the situation, and we all did it at Cricket Scotland. And then you just switch into “How do we get a team there in a seven-day, 24-hour mode?” We have had to try and make the most of every opportunity.
We secured Skyscanner as our lead-arm sponsor in less than seven days. We have been talking to them for about nine months. An event like this can get us those partnerships. Our kit, we looked fabulous out there. Gray-Nicolls did a terrific job in doing that. And just the team pulled together to make it happen. I am really proud of our team, and I am really proud of the team behind the team because we have really shown what Scotland can do. But we can also show that we deserve to be here in a T20 World Cup.
How unfair was it from a purely sporting perspective to go into a World Cup with almost no preparation?
That’s an interesting question. I wouldn’t say it’s unfair. I would take it as an opportunity. We needed to come. We came in here and took it as an opportunity. So, yes, we didn’t have the same preparation as everybody else.
We had to do a lot of things, but that took the pressure off us. We could come in with a different mindset. We were trending on social media in India last Saturday. What an opportunity—for our players to be playing here in India, to have crowds like we have had, and to have been made to feel so welcome.
Kolkata was like home, and now that we are in Mumbai, we have had that same terrific welcome. We would love to come back here and play again because it’s a great place to play in. And we have got the support of the Indian crowd, which is terrific.
Should visiting teams to England mandatorily have an agreement to play Scotland in a T20I, if not an ODI, series?
We would like to play a lot more cricket. That will help us continue to improve. And we see that when we are playing more, we perform better.
That’s just a pure start, so there is a really crowded schedule. That does make it difficult. It’s a two-way street—working with the touring teams coming into the UK but also us reaching out to them.
One of our biggest challenges is that our Future Tours Programme isn’t even a 12-month one. So we need those tent poles for men and women like the Cricket World Cup League 2 and the Emerging Nations Trophy. But with the ever-increasing crowded schedule, that makes it difficult.
So, how does the ICC and how do the member boards help us? Not just us, but those of us that are emerging into that sort of next phase… How do they help us improve? Because it only makes for better cricket. At the end of the day, the game wins. And that’s what we all want. Just building on what players from all the Associate nations that have come along here have had to say, we need more exposure. The Italians have the same thing to say, and the Scots have the same thing to say, as well as the Nepali players.
From a cricket administrator’s perspective and from your experience of dealing with people who run the sport, how difficult is it to strike that balance to give your players more opportunities?
The crowded schedule is making it tougher for us to get more content. We need to work collectively. The Associate members that are playing here in this tournament talk regularly; we meet, and one of the things that we used to have was someone within the ICC that could help bring us together. That would be something that, if we could look at having again, just to make sure that we are working together to build the game and go to the game.
We compete on the field, but off the field we should be helping each other as well. We all have our own individual targets and metrics of what we want to play. I think we have all been consistent in terms of what we want—more cricket on a more regular basis, playing against the top teams. You don’t always have to play the Englands and Australias of the world. We want to play a mix of teams because that will help improve our cricket.
Do you think that there should be a system where the teams who are performing regularly well in lower divisions should be getting a series or matches against the big teams as a reward?
There is a real opportunity for the ICC to look at this, and I know that this tournament has only reinforced the need to do that. I am confident that they will be taking away how we have performed at this World Cup and going, “How do we build on that?” If you look at what the ICC’s longer-term strategic objective is, it’s to grow the game of cricket… it’s global growth. To get that, we are part of that opportunity to achieve that global growth, so I have no doubt that they will be looking at this World Cup to help achieve that outcome.
Not so long ago, a lot of Associates used to say, “Eventually all the Associate talk falls on deaf ears when it comes to the ICC Board.” Is it still more or less the same case, or is it changing?
We are seeing an evolution of cricket. The sport is at an interesting juncture, and there is a real opportunity to achieve that global growth through really ambitious thinking.
We are a member-structured board, and that has its challenges. But it also has its opportunities, so we need to play to our strengths, don’t we? We would like to make sure that we are heard and that we contribute, but we also need to come up with the solutions. We sit here as Scotland and say we want to play more. We need to play more, but we also need to help come up with the solutions, and what we are currently working on is how do we come up with the solutions, and how do we do that collectively as a united voice, and that’s what will help create success.
With every Test-playing nation wanting a window for their franchise league, do you think they’ll still be able to carve out a window for the Associates?
That is the challenge, and we have got a new franchise league coming into Europe with the European T20 Premier League later this year, and that is so exciting for us because we are a part of the founding countries in that.
You have seen how Italy has performed at this World Cup, and you have seen how the Netherlands has performed. There is a real opportunity in Europe. We want to be part of that. We want to be part of that showcase. You saw that crowd out there today, and you saw the excitement. How do we get other people to see that? The T20 format is a real opportunity to do that. The schedule is difficult, but it works both ways, so we need to be actively pursuing those members, but also I do believe that if there is an opportunity for them on their way to the UK to play England or Ireland, then Scotland is a great place to come and warm up. We have got great golf, our tourism products are wonderful, and we have got a great whisky market and coups, so Scotland is a great place to go.
Where is your Full Member mission going?
We get asked that question a lot, and I think we have taken a lot of learnings from the Ireland full membership. For us, (things will happen) at the right time and in the right place. Of course, we would never say no to that, but I wouldn’t say yes to it at any cost.
How far are you?
At the moment, we are just making sure that Cricket Scotland can play on the field at global events like this, and if the opportunity came, we would consider it.
Published on Feb 18, 2026
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